


Hekapoo Shrugged.

by Shock_Cooling



Series: Shadows [2]
Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Adventure, Contains Yeats and Wodehouse, F/F, F/M, Gen, Habit Mythos, Just a preposterous amount of main character death, Kinda, Mystery Villain, Prequel and sequel, Romance, Wacky weapons.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:25:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 63,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shock_Cooling/pseuds/Shock_Cooling
Summary: The events leading up to Star Butterfly's exile from Mewni, the establishment of the republic of Mewni. A story of romance between Solaria Butterfly and Hekapoo and the ultimate result of Hekapoo's first mistake.





	1. Three Roads.

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,  
Enwrought with golden and silver light,  
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths  
Of night and light and the half-light;  
I would spread the cloths under your feet:  
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;  
I have spread my dreams under your feet;  
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats

 

 

Long ago at a vaguely defined point in the distant past.

 

"Yes I know it was the wrong thing to do, but I just couldn't take it anymore. There has been so much death. I have outlived so many wives, children, grandchildren, great grand children, civilizations... I'm eternal, even the stars aren't meant to be eternal, Hekapoo, you know this better than I do. I know how lonely you were before life showed up. But that's the thing about life, it ends, it changes. But not me and not you, memories and mistakes just keep building up inside us. I'm sorry I drew Prince Tanith and everyone else into this. I really am. All I can ask now is your mercy, please, will you grant me that? Before anyone else gets hurt?"

Hekapoo stared at him with an expression of utter rage, "Solaria, wand, now!"

The Monster Carver asked.

"What are you thinking Hekapoo?"

"Wand, now!!!"

Solaria threw the wand, Hekapoo seized it. Two marks formed on Hekapoo's cheeks, flame insignias. Hekapoo threw his scissors back at him and stated.

"I screwed up when I made you, but there's nothing I can do about that. If you want the mercy of death though... I will give you all the death you could ever imagine."

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes after the death of Toffee.

Rhombulus and Lekhmet's home.

Rhombulus stepped through the portal to find what he thought was his worst nightmare come true. He had thought that seeing Lekhmet die would be as bad as things could possibly get for the day. But apparently circumstance wasn't done beating him up just yet.

Nine hundred and fifty nine of the worst monsters that the universe had ever created were loose. Somehow, someone had figured out how to break his unbreakable crystals. As he looked around in horror he waited for his snake hands to start berating him.

They said nothing, they were just as shocked and horrified as he was.

In the middle of it all, Eclipsa's crystal, completely shattered. It had to be her, she was the only person who could have pulled this off. How did she get loose? The only possible way was...

Moon.

He had to find Moon.

Then he remembered something, "oh no, oh no! If she has those then we are all fucked!"

Rhombulus ran to the lower levels of his home. Into his laboratory, below the laboratory was a room that only he knew about. He had never even told Lekhmet about this room. He couldn't tell Lekhmet. How could you tell your best and only friend that you were plotting to kill him?

There were footprints from various monsters and a young lady through the lab, the footprints led straight to the entrance to the room. Rhombulus undid the lock and threw open the door of the cedar paneled room. He ran inside to see a small box, still hidden under a pile of incredibly old books and other random stuff.

"Hidden in plain sight in a secret room. Might as well have a sign on it saying steal me! I'm such an idiot!"

He opened the roughly crafted wood box containing the worst thing he had ever done.

They were all still here. His four unspeakable objects. They didn't look like much, a bolas, a large candle snuffer, a crystal and what appeared to be an empty soup can. These items weren't just random junk though. They were four weapons he had created, custom made to kill the four other members of the Magical High Commission. Why had he done this?

Rhombulus's job was simple, it was to keep things under control. When dark sorcerers got too ambitious and started threatening the very fabric of reality with their madness. Or a monster grew too powerful for regular magic and weapons to deal with. It was Rhombulus's job to seal the threat in crystal for the rest of eternity.

In spite of this great power and responsibility he had issues. One of the deepest being that he was not the most powerful being in creation. That was his fellow Magical High Commissioners, either Glossarick or Omnitraxus Prime depending on who you asked. He had been reminded, very recently, that Glossarick could and would kick his ass. Hekapoo and Lekhmet could also probably fight him, at least to a stalemate, but he would probably lose against them as well.

Being the youngest and weakest member of the commission had led to feelings that he just couldn't deal with. Those feelings were funneled into a paranoia that kept him awake for years. The thought that some evil might infect one of them. It wasn't something utterly unknown or unprecedented, beings of all sorts got infected with evil all the time in this multiverse. It just hadn't happened to any members of the commission... Yet. What would he do if that happened?

So he had studied, he had sweated, he had learned the strengths and weakness of his fellow MHC members and made a deal with a certain dark sorceress to create these four items. His ultimate trump card in case the forces of evil managed to infect one, or all of the commission.

With Eclipsa and the monsters on the loose his worst fear was that they had taken these weapons. He sighed at the sight of the four objects. Immensely relieved that he hadn't completely ruined everything. He made a brief, silent prayer of thanks to his father and talked to his hands.

"Well, go ahead, remind me that I'm an idiot. Remind me that I never should have built these. Remind me that we got really lucky here that no one found this room, forced the lock and took these, these awful things. Go ahead, say I told you so!"

His right hand looked at him and replied.

"No, we are just happy that these are still here. If someone, anyone had taken them the consequences would have been dire."

His left hand spoke.

"Now destroy these things before anyone else shows up! I don't know what Omnitraxus will do to us if he finds out about this, but I don't want to find out!"

Rhombulus took the box upstairs, he built a fire as fast as he could and threw the box into the flames. As the last recognizable bits of the objects were consumed by the flames Hekapoo walked into the room. She shouted.

"Are you seeing this? All the crystals are shattered, Eclipsa is gone! We're fucked, we're completely fucked!"

"Not as fucked as we could have been, big sis." He grumbled.

"What was that?"

"Yeah, big trouble, damn big trouble. We have to get back to Mewni as fast as we can to warn everyone."

Hekapoo cut a portal to Mewni castle, they walked through the portal as the flames crackled softly around what Rhombulus thought were the ashes of his four unspeakable weapons. In reality these were replicas, the real weapons were in the grateful arms of Eclipsa Butterfly as she flew away from the scene with her monster menagerie.

 

* * *

 

Present day.

Pauline Long's home.

9:23 AM.

Pauline was editing a report. There was a word that she had forgotten the exact meaning of. She reached for a dictionary and looked it up while a gentle rain fell outside.

As she found the word in question she heard the snap of a camera shutter. She looked up to see Star Butterfly holding one of her cameras. Pauline asked.

"I thought photography was supposed to be my thing?"

"Aw come on StarFan, I need some fresh pictures of you for my locker."

"Oh, I didn't know you had a locker anymore."

Star took another picture without saying a word.

Pauline put the book down and looked at the camera, giving a goofy smile. Star stated, "no no, keep doing what you are doing. Just pretend I'm not here."

Pauline replied.

"It's kind of hard to focus on... Anything when a naked woman is taking pictures of you."

Another snap.

"Indulge me, okay?"

Pauline put the dictionary down and tried to go back to her paperwork. As Star kept taking pictures.

After fifteen more shots Pauline put down the paperwork and struck a pose. Pouting her lips and kneeling towards the camera.

Star murmured, "don't start something you can't finish, beautiful."

Pauline sat back in a more normal position and asked.

"Star, I... why do you call me beautiful? I'm not! I know I'm better looking than I was when I was fourteen, thank god. But I know I am not all that much to look at."

Star lowered the camera, looked her in the eyes and stated.

"Says you, you are beautiful now and you were beautiful when you called yourself StarFan13. You may have been a little creep, but you were my little creep. Some people say that I'm not all that much too look at either. My voice doesn't sound like it belongs to a beautiful person, does it?"

Star pointed down, ordering, "now lie down for me."

Pauline stretched out on the couch in the most seductive pose that her rumpled, dirty clothes would permit. Star took a few more pictures, as she looked at them in the cameras view screen she said.

"Not bad, now how about showing us some skin?"

Pauline reached for the bottom of her shirt, she was going to pull the whole thing off when Star stopped her.

"Up bup, bup, slowly! Aren't you the one who always wants to do things slowly?"

Pauline started removing her clothes as slowly as she could while Star snapped away. Under the messy layers of cotton and denim laid the silken femininity that Star wished to capture. She got closer and closer with the camera as more and more clothes came off.

She took detailed shots of Pauline's flat stomach, those perky breasts and finally, that charming face. Star tickled her under her chin to get a smile out of her. When Pauline didn't smile broadly enough for her she started tickling her feet.

The tickling was the last straw, Pauline couldn't help herself. She grabbed Star and pulled her into a passionate kiss.

Star gently placed the camera on the table. Then proceeded to lie down next to her and hug her.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just two women greatly enjoying each other's company.

After a few minutes of silence Pauline announced.

"You know I really do need to get this report sent off."

Star replied.

"I know, it's just..."

"Just what?"

Star shifted her position lower, more submissive.

"It's just that I love it when you make time for me."

"Still recovering from ten years of nonstop adventure?"

"You make that sound much more fun than it was."

"Oh I know, you aren't my only friend who went through something like that."

Pauline ran a finger through her lovers hair and looked out the window. As the rain fell she observed.

"If I had gone through one tenth of what you had gone through... This would seem like nirvana to me too."

She kissed Star on the forehead.

"It's still pretty nice, heck I feel kinda spoiled that I get the incredible Star Butterfly all to myself."

Star looked up to her and asked. "I'm really enough for you?"

Pauline leaned down and smacked Star on the ass, "what was that you said right before you tried to break my spine? You, are, mine StarFan13? That goes both ways my gorgeous Star41."

Star looked away and blushed.

"I still can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry."

"Amongst friends no apology is needed. Hey, at least you didn't make me shoot you in the head in the Congo. So let's say that we are even on that account, okay?"

Star looked up at Pauline, the girl she had once known as StarFan13 and blushed harder. She couldn't believe that anyone could be so forgiving to her after everything she had done. Everything she had killed, everything she had fucked up. This girl practiced unconditional love. Star wasn't used to that. She was used to having to deal with more terms and conditions on a romantic relationship than a multidimensional wireless contract.

Star kissed her on the lips and observed.

"It's been over two months since Hekapoo left. I haven't seen any anomalous heat signatures since. She hasn't been around, she hasn't hired anyone to track us. Do... Do you think that she has forgotten about us?"

Pauline replied.

"I doubt it, most people don't usually forget when somebody tries to kill them. I'm thinking we should go to Mewni and see what's happening."

Star buried her head in Pauline's chest and groaned, "do we have to. Can't we just leave the multiverse to their own troubles?"

"I don't think they are going to leave us alone. They might be busy with something right now but they will be around to pick you up sooner or later. I understand what she did to you, but I don't want to see if I can win in a fight with that woman. I know you can, I just think we would all be better off if we settled this like adults."

Star tousled her own hair over her face, keeping her head where it was. Like she was hiding from something.

"I'm tired of being an adult, I just want to sit on your couch, watch movies and eat... You. Can't I just stay here as your little love slave?"

Pauline pulled Star's head up, brushing her long blonde hair off of her face and kissed her gently on the lips.

"I know your childhood was cut short. But we all have to grow up sometime. I'll be there for you, every step of the way, but you know that you need to face the music."

Bands of energy formed between Pauline's fingers.

"You know I will always be there for you with everything I have. After all this... Practice I have been getting with energy manipulation... Well, let's just say that if you get the maximum sentence I will make sure that they can't carry it out."

Pauline ran her hand up Star's side, the crackling energy drove Star wild.

"Star, I have had you all to myself for months now. I have enjoyed it, even the bad parts. More than you can imagine. But you are too interesting for me to keep locked up here. You need to stop living like a fugitive and get back out into the wider world."

Star rolled on top of her, staring into Pauline's eyes she asked seriously.

"Think they can handle me? Do you think I can handle them? That I won't go nuts and start smashing things?"

"I de-powered you. I have partial control over the wand. If you turn into a mad dog again I can just turn you off."

Star smiled and leaned in for another kiss.

"You never turn me off. You love me too much. You love all of me, not just the good stuff, the bad stuff too. I mean, you thought I was going to kill one of your best friends and all you said was that you were my punching bag, not him. Speaking of which, as long as we are talking about facing the music. When are you going to tell Roy what happened with you and his brother?"

Pauline looked up, in a completely deadpan tone she replied. "Gee I don't know Star, can't I just sit on the couch, finish my report and eat... You?"

Star glared down, "subtle, real subtle Long, but my point still stands."

Pauline rubbed her eyes and groaned. "Alright, I'll tell him, but not for a couple of days. I have a few things to iron out first. I have a couple of non geology related clients lined up."

Star smiled and asked, "oh, I'm going to get to see you show off your dark magic to others? You know how much I like that."

"Why do you like that? Didn't you used to get jealous that I can do something you never even thought of doing?"

"Hey, you learned how to do that by mind-fucking the trauma out of me. I like seeing what you do with your abilities to help people. You took my darkest secrets and turned them into something useful. Something that saves lives."

"Saves lives... I do like saving lives."

Star leaned down and asked, "saving lives or fucking me. Which do you like more?"

Pauline replied noncommittally.

"I can save anyone's life who wants to be saved. There's only one Star Butterfly. Comes down to a question of who do I like more. You, or everyone else in the multiverse, hmm."

Star sighed, stood up and announced.

"You and your non sequiturs."

Pauline grabbed Star, pulling their faces together, separated by millimeters.

"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings. Is that non sequitur enough for you, Butterfly? All I can ever ask you is that you don't ever give me that choice, you or the world. Don't back me into that corner again and I will love you until we are a hundred years old."

Star blinked, "really, you would really stick with me until we're both old and gray?"

"I'm actually looking forward to it."

"Pauline, don't, don't say that if you don't mean it."

Pauline licked Star's neck. "Star, if I could handle, physically sucking the darkness in your soul out of your... delicious neck then I think I can handle a few wrinkles. I want all of you, not just the mask you present to everyone else. And I hope you want all of me. We all have our illusions we present to the outside world, I want the real thing."

"I want what you never shared with anyone else, and I will reach inside you to get it."

Star was on the edge of tears. She thought she had been emotionally balanced by her energy manipulation fight with Pauline. But she wasn't feeling very emotionally balanced right now.

Star asked.

"Can, can I help you with that report?"

It was Pauline's turn to blink.

"Probably not, why?"

"Because you make me want to be responsible, and I want to thank you. At the same time I want to help you with your responsibilities."

Pauline picked up her papers, looked them over, then looked at Star. She pushed Star up, then laid back facedown on the couch.

"Tell you what, why don't you give me a massage while I finish up."

Star grabbed a handful of Pauline's ass and growled, "I'll finish you up good, StarFan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as my personal headcanon for Shadows of Star. After awhile it grew into something much bigger and more complex. The flow of the story might seem a little odd as we will be jumping around in time quite a bit.


	2. So, whatever happened to Queen Moon and King River?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, one might ask, how did Marco Diaz become Prime Minister of Mewni? This is the beginning of that story.

The rose garden, two days after the battle of Mewni.

 

Moon Butterfly was in a coma. The cause was obvious, the creeping magical infection still working its way up her arms.

Only it wasn't an infection. At least not any that any doctor on Mewni, or earthling medicine, or even the surviving members of the Magical High Commission could identify. The finest minds in the multiverse were utterly baffled by her condition. All they could say was that what appeared to be happening wasn't an illness in any sense that they were familiar with. It appeared to be, for lack of a better idea, concentrated entropy. Her mitochondria, the power plant of her cells appeared to be dying wherever the darkness spread.

And the condition was spreading rapidly.

The only option left was a rather desperate one. Being sealed in one of Rhombulus crystals. It was hoped that crystallization would arrest the process. It was the only thing that offered any hope of keeping Queen Moon alive until a treatment could be found.

With great sadness King River and Princess Star agreed to the crystallizing. As the process was completed the Queen still stood proudly. With her eyes closed she would stand within the crystal until a treatment could be found. Her arms extended like the Virgin Mary; to allow doctors and scientists to examine the corruption as closely as they could.

Not long after being sealed up Rhombulus and the other members of the MHC were called away. There was a monster attack on the edges of the kingdom. Something bigger and nastier than the usual Mewnian monsters. It was attacking the bulk of the Mewnian regular army which had been deployed far from the castle before Toffee showed up.

As the MHC and Princess Star flew into battle King River demanded to go with. Star shouted back to him.

"No, you need to stay here with Mom, you need to guard her, you need to secure the castle. This might just be a distraction for another attack on Mewni."

As Hekapoo cut a portal to the affected location she reassured him. "Don't worry, we are just a mirror call away. If anything happens just call us and we will be right back. Just stay safe River, and take care of Moon, you hear me!"

As they left King River was heartbroken. He couldn't bear the thought of looking at his wife sealed in that thing for one more second. There were six knights, in magical power armor guarding the crystal. He had to take a moment, he needed to mourn his wife's illness alone.

He went to the rose garden. It wasn't really his style, but it seemed like the best place for quiet introspection. Moon had never spent much time there, it seemed like the best place to get away from his wife's outsized legacy.

Queen Moon, Moon the Undaunted! One of the most competent, bold and resolute leaders in the history of Mewni, incapacitated, motionless, unable to come to the phone.

River had loved her deeply, since not long after they had first met. Their respective strengths and flaws had complimented each other remarkably well in their relationship. But that didn't matter to River at this point. He was just overwhelmed at the thought of going on without her. As if things weren't bad enough as they were now. Poor little Star was going to have to take on the mantle of Queen. She wasn't ready yet, River knew from firsthand experience what happened when you place a child on the throne.

Moon had known even better than he did. She had made numerous hard decisions to see to it that, unlike a few of the previous queens. She would live long enough to give Star the tools she needed to rule, not just reign. Including sending her to one of the craziest planets in the multiverse, Earth. They knew that if they had sent Star to St Olga's she would have been just another in a long line of rulers maintaining the status quo. That couldn't last. The Mewnian people were hungry, desperate. They knew of the riches of the wider multiverse. Realms of idyllic splendor compared to were they were. Places like America on Earth where people could earn a living that made Mewnian nobility look like beggars. Or the Islands of Blest in the realm of Avonia where life was one of joyous pleasure for all who visited.

Mewni had needed serious reforms in order to keep everyone from either leaving, or rebelling and demanding what they could get elsewhere. So they had made the hard decision to send Star to Earth where she could learn what she would need to reform the government.

That plan was in tatters now. Star had only completed part of her training. By some bizarre, though not entirely unexpected inversion of the expected process, being sent to a realm without magic she had developed magical skill that was off the charts. She only had a peripheral knowledge of what needed to be done politically. This was a dangerous combination. A recipe for war, and King River knew it. He had fought to keep Star in a place where, he believed, that she would learn what she needed to know to weather these storms.

He was going to have to be there for his daughter, to shepherd her through this. He was going to have to temper her steel. Show her that there is more to problem solving that just smashing things.

But he knew that he sucked at that sort of thing.

He buried his head in his hands as the scent of roses wafted on the breeze.

A feminine voice asked.

"Bad day huh?"

Without looking up River replied.

"The worst, the absolute worst."

"Need to talk?"

"Yes, I suppose I should. My wife is dying, my daughter is off hunting monsters... without me! Mewni is a mess and its only going to get worse. Moon and I, we had so many plans. Star, she was supposed to go to college on Earth and learn what she would need to make it through the political chaos barreling down the road at us. The damn schools on Earth aren't much better than they are here. They taught her nothing! everything she learned on Earth was from action movies. We are in damn big trouble! the next queen of Mewni is going to be one hell of a fighter and not much else. We already have enough fighters! Still, I suppose as bad as that is, it could have been worse."

"Worse?"

"There's a TV show that Star never liked, Game of Thrones. She thought it was too boring, thank god she did. If she had gotten into that show... Ugh! I watched the first season of that last week, it, it's basically a guide on how not to run a monarchy."

"Huh."

"Oh, sorry I forget, almost no one else in Mewni has a television or a DVD player. I'm talking about things you don't understand, sorry."

"No no, it's okay, better out than in. I assume you are talking about things from Earth? It seems that there is a lot of new things in Mewni coming from the realm of Earth. Things have changed a bit since I left."

"Yes, and the changes are only going to go faster. I, I just don't know if my family is going to survive those changes."

The voice replied brightly.

"Well, that all just depends on how you are able to use those changes to your best advantage. Change isn't inherently bad or good, it just is."

River replied in a happier tone.

"Hmm, never thought of it that way, thanks, you have been a real help."

River looked up and saw the woman standing next to him. She looked oddly familiar he asked.

"I'm sorry, have we met?"

The petite woman smiled and shook her head.

"No I don't think so."

Then River noticed her cheeks. Spade cheek marks, green hair, slim frame. Her identity dawned on him, his eyes dilated as he whispered.

"Eclipsa."

She smiled politely and asked.

"Yes, now who are you?"

River reached down and drew a small dagger he carried with him, mainly for the purpose of cutting things like small lengths of string and opening letters. He seized her neck and slammed her into the ground, leaning on top of her. He angrily, but quietly told her.

"You go up there right now and you fix my wife."

"I'm sorry, who is your wife?"

"Queen Moon, the damned ruler of Mewni! You go up there right now and you fix what you did to her with that horrible spell you gave her."

"Horrible spell...? Oh right, breaking things that can't be broken. No, sorry, I can't help with that."

River placed the tip of the dagger millimeters away from her right eye.

"If you don't undo what you did I am going to start taking things from you. Things that you will miss."

Eclipsa was growing uncomfortable as she groaned under the crushing weight of King River. She wriggled a hand free and took the glove off her left hand with her teeth.

"Do you really think that if I could fix the side effects of that spell that my hand would look like this? That spell is extremely dangerous, I told Moon as much. One of the consequences of it is that when you do damage to a target corresponding damage is sometimes done to the caster. There are a lot of variables but you never know what you are going to get. The only thing that can save Moon is time. Time for the effects of the spell to wear off, time for her body to heal."

"Then cast a healing spell on her to speed up the process."

"I can't, that spell was specifically designed to defeat anything with an advanced healing factor of a biological or magical nature. A healing spell against that would be like throwing water on a grease fire. The only thing that works is time! And it's a damn good thing I had plenty of time to heal after all the times I had to use that blasted spell."

Lekhmet was gone, the multiverse's designated master of entropy couldn't help. Others had tried, including Star. Every one of those spells had made Moon's condition worse. River thought.

 _"This was all her fault, she had given Moon that spell. She has broken loose all those monsters. She was the Queen of Darkness, the worst ruler in the history of Mewni. It is all her fault that Moon was sealed in that crystal. Her evil has to stop here_!" River angled the dagger to her neck and murmured.

"Then what good are you to me?"

Eclipsa's eyes went wide with horror as she said.

"Now, I came here in peace, and I intend to leave in one... piece. So consider your next move very carefully King... whatever your name is."

King River snorted derisively as he asked.

"Now why should I?"

Eclipsa's expression went from horror to resolve. She began to softly murmur a spell. River raised the dagger to plunge it into her chest. As she finished the spell she asked, "look at your knife."

River did as she asked as a reflex. The dagger wasn't a dagger anymore. It was a giant black cobra coiling around his arm.

He exclaimed in horror as he threw away the snake in his hands. Once it was gone he cocked back a fist to pound Eclipsa's face. As he did so her hand came up to strike him. He was not concerned, what could this tiny woman possibly do to the mighty River Johansen?

Eclipsa's slap hit him with the force of a rogue warnicorn. He literally went flying, about eight meters away from where he had been kneeling.

He got up, seeing stars, he could barely remember the last time he had taken a hit like that. Eclipsa got up and stated.

"Now calm down, this doesn't have to go any further!"

River rushed her, cocking back the biggest punch that he could summon he was going to hit her with all the force that his body could bring to bear. Which was far more than what the average human could do. Or even most mewmans were capable of.

His punch did not connect with Eclipsa's jaw. It struck a force field she was projecting. For River it was like punching the finest and thickest piece of forged steel that he had ever seen. His hand broke under the force of the punch.

Without a moments hesitation he angled for a kick. His foot struck another part of the force field, going much slower than the punch. Still utterly ineffective. As he stood there dumbfounded Eclipsa cocked back her own hand to strike.

As the blow hit King River felt guilty. Guilty that he had started this fight, and even more guilty that this would mean that he couldn't be there for his daughter. Right when she needed him the most.

River went flying again, this time the energy of the slap, striking his face instead of his chest. Was combined with that added force of his impacting face first into a large stone pedestal. His neck and skull instantly shattered.

Eclipsa walked over to him and rolled him over. She was shocked to see that he was dead. She whispered.

"Damn, I guess they don't make Kings of Mewni like they used to!"

She left the rose garden quickly, her attempted diplomacy having failed in the most spectacular way possible. Stopping just long enough to get her things out of the Rose Tower. Hidden in a secret passage were her own books of magic. Some items of personal importance and her own set of dimensional scissors. As she checked to see if they still functioned properly she heard the sound of someone screaming nearby. She cut a portal out of the area, thinking.

_"I'm going to need more time, fortunately I know just where to get it."_


	3. Healing things, hurting other things.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another two parter, wherein we learn more about the fabled Monster Carver and what StarFan and Star have been up to besides cuddling on the couch.

The forest of certain death.

 

 

"How the hell did you talk me into this?"

"You talked yourself into this."

"Ooookay, how did I talk myself into this?"

"Because you wouldn't shut up about all the dimension hopping monsters you took down the last time we were at the Bounce Lounge. You know I don't like hanging out there, and you had to talk about my favorite thing in the world the whole time you were there? You should consider yourself lucky that we are still in Mewni. If I really wanted to have some fun we could go elsewhere."

"Fun, this is fun to you, Solaria? Up to our ankles in mud, bugs and, oh what even is that?"

"Yes, this my kind of fun! now talk a little louder why don't you? How about you detail our plans to exterminate everything in this shithole!"

Hekapoo and Solaria's argument grew louder and louder as they went deeper into the forest. There had been reports of a new monster terrorizing the local farmers. Princess Solaria wanted to take this thing down before it got ambitious enough to attack anyone outside the outskirts of the forest.

"You see that's the thing you never understood Hekapoo, you just try to keep things under control. Fuck control, you can never control everything. Life is chaos, randomness, and the glories of life lie resplendent in that chaos. Don't focus on the mud, just look at all the wonderful nature around us right now."

As a branch smacked her in the face and was lit by her flame Hekapoo grumbled. "Easy for you to say, you are properly dressed and you don't have a fire over your head announcing your location for all to see."

"Well, there's nothing I can do about the fire, but I can certainly make a few modifications to your dress if you like."

"Really? Little miss Badass is going to offer me fashion tips?"

Solaria ran her left hand through her hair and stated. "Well, I do have a few, specific skills outside of slicing things."

"Oh, like what?"

Solaria looked Hekapoo squarely in the eyes and announced.

"Did you know I brew a killer... Corn whiskey?"

"Knowing you the word killer is probably used in the most literal sense."

"Ah what do you have to worry about? You are immortal, right?"

Before Hekapoo could reply Solaria raised her hand and whispered pensively.

"Quiet, I hear something."

Solaria gestured to get down, she asked Hekapoo.

"What do you see?"

"It's hard to tell, whatever it is is big, really big. Multiple legs, low to the ground. I think it might be armored."

"Armored? Sweet, can you see any weapons?"

"No, if it has any then they are probably internal."

"Alright, this sounds like my kind of monster. So, how do you want to take it down?"

"I don't even want to be out here! If you want to kill this thing, go right ahead, but this is your hunt, not mine."

"Fine, spoilsport. Just sit back and mope in the mud while I have all the fun!"

Solaria drew the wand, but she did not activate it. She didn't want to tip her hand. She preferred close range combat, while she could use the wand for long range strikes that wasn't as much fun as cleaving things in twain with raw energy.

She strode warily up to the massive monster. Hiding amongst brush and brambles as long as she could until she was standing a few feet away from the beast.

It was big alright, at least thirty feet long. With six massive legs. It blended in with the local dirt, looking like a pile of boulders.

A breathing pile of boulders.

Solaria leapt into the air, charged the wand and brought it down into the middle of the monster.

The beast reared up and threw her some distance away. Her attack had punched through its rocky armor, just far enough to piss it off.

As the monster bucked Solaria was thrown straight through a rather substantial tree. As she shook her head to recover she reactivated the wand and began launching magical explosions at the monster.

The magical blasts bounced off the beast like they were nothing. As it turned around Solaria faced it head on.

It was even bigger than she thought it was, eight legs not six and had a set of jaws big enough to swallow her whole. She smiled and roared, "I'm really going to enjoy this!"

She ran towards the monster, as it opened its mouth Solaria extended the blade of the wand out to twenty feet. Long enough to cut its head off.

Before she could close the range though she was hit with an indescribable sound. It was so strong it felt like it was going to crumble her very bones. She dropped the wand and put her hands on her ears.

Solaria realized that she had fucked up. All this thing had to do was take two steps and it could either flatten her or eat her. Other than the pain of the monsters sonic attack the only thought in her head was.

"You know, I should really be less reckless, oh well, maybe in my next life."

Before the monster closed the distance a fireball came out of nowhere hitting the monster square in the jaws. Causing it to stop its sound attack. Solaria took the opportunity to grab the wand and used it to rocket into the air. She reforged the 20 foot blade and used the force of gravity to come down on top of the monsters head.

The blade punched through the monsters thickest armor, right on top of it's skull. The energy blade went four feet into the ground before Solaria's feet landed delicately on what looked like the monsters third eye. She twisted the blade and once she was sure that the monster was dead she deactivated it and sheathed the wand.

She looked in the direction from where the fireball came. She pointed and shouted, "thank, you, Hekapoo! I couldn't have done that without you."

Hekapoo replied, "don't do that again Solaria, please. That was insane."

As she jumped down from the monsters head she replied, "you know what? You're right, I'm thinking that I should find some other hobbies. Can't live by monster hunting alone you know."

"Oh, what kind of other hobbies?"

Solaria walked towards Hekapoo and spoke softly, "like this."

She drew Hekapoo into a passionate kiss.

Hekapoo pulled away and spluttered, "wow, um, okay, if you like. No, no we can't, what if your mother finds out? What if the rest of the Magical High Commission finds out?"

Solaria replied in a singsong tone, "I won't tell if you won't."

Hekapoo stammered, "okay, geeez, wait, are you sure about this?"

"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I have known you as long as I have lived. Do you have any idea how long I have wanted to taste you?"

Solaria pushed her up against a tree, Hekapoo pushed back, burning away some of the hair on the right side of Solaria's head. Hekapoo warned.

"No, not out here, not in the mud."

Running her fingers delicately across Hekapoo's shoulders Solaria asked.

"What's the matter? Afraid you will get... Wet?"

Solaria reached inside Hekapoo's gown and found her dimensional scissors. She tossed them into a nearby birds nest. Solaria smiled and ran her hand through her burnt hair. As she examined the damage from the singe she said in a seductive tone.

"You are going to regret that, big time."

As she closed the distance she kissed Hekapoo hungrily. Hekapoo was nervous, this was all so untoward. Not forbidden, but certainly unprecedented. No one in the Mewnian royal family had ever made a move on her before. But then again Solaria wasn't what anyone would call a typical example of a royal. Even if she had been born in some other world, in some other life she could only have one path in life, the path of the warrior. Regardless of what gender she would have been incarnated in Solaria's spirit would have only been satisfied with a life where she could crush evil with righteous fury.

Solaria was used to taking what she wanted, and right now she wanted Hekapoo.

As she started to relax into Solaria's embrace Hekapoo blinked, "no, wait stop."

"Why?"

"I see something, a few dimensions away, portals opening, they aren't closing. This could be big trouble."

Solaria sighed and pulled away, "okay, if the multiverse hangs in the balance then I should probably let you go. I'll be seeing you around, Hekapoo."

As Solaria turned her back and walked away Hekapoo shouted. "Hey, Princess Crazy Pants! My scissors!?"

Solaria looked back and replied, "oh, right, where are my manners?"

She drew the wand and sliced clean through the tree that held the birds nest where the scissors had landed. The tree fell in front of Hekapoo. Solaria walked away without even turning to look where it was falling. The scissors flew through the air, landing blade first in the dirt at Hekapoo's feet. She shouted.

"You know you could have just cut the branch!"

Solaria shot Hekapoo a rude gesture as she vanished into the brush of the forest. Walking with a perfect insouciance that Hekapoo found irresistible.

"Oh what have I gotten myself into?" Hekapoo whispered to herself.

 

* * *

 

Present day.

The home of the Yates family.

Pauline Long sat across the table from Danny Yates. The son of a friend of a friend. Danny barely noticed the woman sitting directly across from him. The eight year old had a severe case of autism. He was off in his own little world right now, unable and unwilling to make contact with anyone around him. As he gestured and made nonsensical noises Pauline thought.

" _Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. This is going to be quite a challenge."_

She started making hand gestures among the energies that surrounded Danny. They were a mess. An utter rats nest of random nonsense made up his aura. This was expected. She got to work cleaning it up.

"So, what's she doing?" Asked Danny's mother Tina, standing quietly on the edge of the room with her husband Alan and one Star Butterfly. Star explained in a whisper.

"It's hard to explain, but right now what she is doing is kinda like a handshake. She is reaching out to your sons core self to try to make contact. Oh, now see, this is a very good sign. Your sons hand gestures are becoming more symmetrical. He is reaching out to her."

Pauline slowed her hand gestures, becoming more synchronized with Danny's. Their respective gestures went slower and slower and slower. Danny stopped flailing as he stated to stare at the woman sitting across from him. Pauline asked curtly.

"Star, wand, usual spot. I'm going in."

Star placed her wand between them on the table. Pauline reached out to the mind of the boy she was sitting across from and asked.

"May I come in?"

Danny hesitated, he wasn't used to people being able to see him, to talk to him, to understand him. He was afraid, he had never met this woman before. No, he had met her before. He didn't quite remember when, but he remembered this woman. She was one of the gun people. The gun people could be loud and scary and weird, but his father was one of them. He glanced over and saw his father and mother in the room. They trusted her too. There was something in this woman's eyes that he liked. Then he saw.

There was something around her, all purple and green, it was like a force field, it wrapped around her like a tornado. This woman was very interesting indeed. What sealed the deal was her eyes. Those turbine patterned eyes. Okay, he had to know more about this woman. He couldn't speak, so he thought to her.

"Come in, whoever you are."

Pauline dove into his mind, and quickly found his core self.

The core was in a memory, that's the way it usually was when she went poking around in other people's minds. The memory was a pleasant one, a very detailed depiction of a park with a stream running through it. That was one of the things that Pauline appreciated about working with autists. They had a real eye for detail in the constructions in their memories.

Danny was sitting on a bench, watching some kids play baseball. Pauline flew down to where he was, dropped out of the sky behind him and sat down beside him. He looked up and asked.

"Who are you? I have never seen you here before."

She cheerfully replied, extending her hand in a handshake, "Pauline Long, pleased to meet you."

He slowly took her hand and shook it. He had never shaken anyone's hand before. It felt, fascinating. Increasingly confused by the situation Danny asked.

"How are you talking with me? no one ever talks with me, just at me."

"Well, we aren't in the real world right now. We are in your memories. I had to bring the two of us here so we could talk."

"Okay, yeah, you are that woman with the wings and the funny eyes. Can I see your eyes again?"

Pauline smiled at him and flashed him her turbine irises.

"Damn that's cool as hell!"

She blinked away the pattern and replied.

"Thank you, I think so too."

Danny smiled and looked away, asking.

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

Pauline answered.

"I'm wondering why you don't go and play with those other kids?"

"They aren't real kids, they are just memories."

"Okay, why don't you play with other kids in real life then?"

"I can't, I just can't. I have no coordination, can't catch, can't throw, can't talk to them... I can't even look them in the fucking eyes!"

Pauline shrugged and replied.

"That's a problem, I might be able to help you with that, if you let me."

"Oh sure, you are going to fix me? That's rich, you think I haven't been trying to fix myself for my entire life? You think I haven't been trying to reach out to other people? It's hopeless, I'm useless, I'm a burden on my parents and society as a whole. I'm a worthless sack of crap and that's all I am ever going to be."

He grabbed her arm and shouted in her face.

"I can't even tell my own mother I love her! Can you even begin to imagine how much that hurts!?"

She grabbed his arm, prying his hands off and replied softly, "yes, yes I can. I can help you with that, if you let me. But the choice is yours, worst case scenario? I will be sure to tell your mother how you feel, you have my word."

His grip relaxed, "so, what kind of help are you talking about?"

"It's difficult to explain, to really go into the details would take a long time and I don't think you would understand a lot of what I told you. But I can bring you out, the real you. Out of these memories, out of the prison of your own mind. I can let you use your body as it was intended to be used. If you like."

"Un huh, well, that sounds cool, let's do that then."

"It's not that simple, you need to enter into a state of harmonic resonance with the universe itself. You need to release your burden and enter a state of love."

"Love? What do you mean? Am I supposed to hug you or kiss you or something?"

"Ha, no, thanks kid but it's a bit more complex than that." She pointed over to the memories of the children playing baseball. "You have to go play with them."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I already told you I can't play with anyone, besides those are just memories. They don't react to me."

"We are always making new memories, trust me when I say that they will react."

"What if they react by trying to hurt me?"

"They won't, but if they do then I will stop them."

"I can't, I, I just can't."

"Alright kid, if that's the way it is then I can't help you. I will just have to sit on this bench with you until you do."

"You aren't going to leave me?"

"No, I will stay here and talk to you for as long as it takes. I might have to leave every now and then to sleep and use the bathroom. But as long as you are here, I will be here for you."

Danny hugged her. "I never, I, I don't have anyone to talk to here. Please don't go, it's so damn lonely here."

Pauline hugged him back and replied, "hey, it's okay. I know it sucks being trapped in your own head. I know how lonely it gets in places like this, how repetitive it gets. Seeing the same day over and over and over again, just praying to a god you don't really believe in that something might break the monotony."

"You do?"

"Yes, I used to be a lot like you. I could string a sentence together. But I didn't talk to anyone that I didn't have to. I was in a place like this. Sitting on a bench much like this one. Creating, creating vast and strange worlds in my mind. I was a god of a realm like this. But the world was passing me by. I didn't even realize how much I was missing until..."

She went silent, an increasingly creepy smile crawled across her face. After a few seconds Danny shook her and asked angrily.

"Until what you weirdo!?"

"Until someone came along and pulled me out of this. It wasn't easy, oh lord it was painful at times. Growth is painful, but it's worth it, at least in my opinion."

Danny looked away and blinked, "that's what you are trying to do? Pull me out of here?"

"Yes, but only with your full consent. I cannot and will not force you into anything you don't want to do."

A bat cracked, a ball went sailing through the air in a lazy arc. Right at Pauline. It landed just in front of her and rolled to her feet. She picked up the ball and announced.

"Well kid, I don't know about you, but I have a hankering to play some baseball. You can come with me if you like, or you can stay here on this bench for as long as you please. Either way I will be here for you for as long as I can, so will your parents..."

A little redheaded girl, about the same age as Danny ran up. Pauline pointed to her and finished.

"And so will your friends, from now until the end of the universe."

Pauline pitched the ball to the girl, who caught it. Pauline asked, "hey, got room in that game for two more?"

She got off the bench and walked over to the pitchers mound. The girl tossed the ball back to her and Pauline pitched the ball at a memory of a young boy. Gently, just hard enough to give the thought form a challenge hitting the thing.

The core that was Danny Yates got off the bench. He was scared as hell as he walked towards the plate. He knew that any second the memories were going to attack him. Call him names, beat him up, hurt him. But they didn't, he was walking. He was walking in a straight line. With none of the stumbling awkwardness he was used to.

A thought form handed Danny a bat and took the plate. Pauline announced in what sounded like a bizarrely deep voice.

**"Now batting, one Danny Yates. This young man from Bend Oregon just might have what it takes to be MVP this year."**

Danny looked around, the memories were smiling at him. They weren't supposed to smile, he wasn't supposed to be able to read their faces. They were supposed to be inscrutable. They weren't supposed to be happy. They were all waiting for him.

He tightened his grip on the bat and faced Pauline. He gasped, the force field didn't look like a tornado anymore, it looked like a set of wings. As she stared they unfolded, becoming more... Real, more metallic. Inside were the most beautiful fractal designs he had ever seen.

He wanted those wings, but if he couldn't get those wings he just wanted to stare at them. She shouted.

**"Hey, I know I look cool, but keep your eye on the ball, kid."**

He followed her instructions. He tore his eyes away from the wings and focused on the ball in her hands. She threw it.

It seemed to be going pretty fast, but he was able to track it all the way from her hand to right in front of his bat. He swung the bat. He swung with everything he had. The bat exploded on impact with the ball sending it blasting away with all the speed of a gunshot.

Pauline looked up. The ball had shattered the illusion. The memories began to dissolve. As this happened Danny focused on Pauline. The one thing here that wasn't an illusion. She smiled and announced.

**"Welcome to the game, son."**

As the illusion shattered Pauline and Danny were back in his parents living room. His eyes were alight with the fire of consciousness. He breathed deeply, he touched his face. His body was under his control. He looked over at his parents. He stared at them, he wanted, need to know that he saw them. He gasped louder and louder as he tried to force out the words.

"I, I can, I know, I, I, I, thank you."

They couldn't believe it. Years of therapists, medicines, exotic treatments. No effect, now, after ten minutes sitting with this woman they had only known in passing their son was speaking.

They couldn't hold back. They exploded across the room and hugged their son. As they embraced each other they all started crying. Danny spoke again, his words halting, still unpracticed talking.

"I'm soooooo sory, I'm so sooory I have beeen such a bur, bur-den to you."

His parents wailed even louder, his mother almost screamed. "Don't say that, don't ever say that, just..."

She couldn't say anymore.

Pauline picked up the wand and handed it to Star, whispering to her. "I think this is our cue to exit."

Star took the wand, gave Pauline a quick kiss on the cheek and replied, "yep, you have done well today. I will have to give you a suitable reward."

Pauline gave Star a coy smile as she got out of the chair. They were almost to the front door when Alan howled at them.

"Long!!! You hold it right there!"

Alan Yates ran up to the two of them and grabbed them, pulling the both of them into a hug. He whispered, "you can't go, I haven't thanked you yet."

Pauline replied, "your tears of gratitude are thanks enough Alan."

"No, no it's not! I owe you big time, anything you want of mine, it's yours."

Pauline pulled out of the hug and said.

"Tell you what, how about we talk about a new sidearm, or two. You might regret your saying this, I've had my eye on that Field Pistol you have in the front case."

"Done, come by tomorrow to pick it up."

"But that's an eight thousand..."

Pauline was speechless, Mr Yates was crying too hard to speak. It was left to Star to clap him on the shoulder and state. "Well that will have to be enough, now go, be with your son. The moments after integration are critical. This is far from over. Your son is still going to need a lot of help to get up to where he needs to be in life. We just got him talking, you are going to have to teach him math, how to ride a bike, how to shave and so on."

Alan turned around and went back to his son and wife. Overjoyed that he could hear his son's voice now, that he had a chance at a normal life.

Star Butterfly and Pauline Long walked out of the Yates house, towards Pauline's Porsche. As they got in the car Star observed.

"I really love this job."

"So do I, you want to drive?"

"Ha ha, very funny Pauline."

"Laugh all you like, but you are going to have to learn how to drive one of these days."

Star held up her mothers pair of dimensional scissors and announced. "Tell you what, once we settle up with Hekapoo and Marco I will learn how to drive."

Pauline grabbed her and started kissing her voraciously. Saying softly in her ear. "Oh yeah baby, you know nothing gets me hotter than seeing you show responsibility. But I think we should make a note of what happened here."

Star nodded and took out Pauline's spell book. Significantly thicker than the one Star had made after the original was burned it was quite differently written than the other two spell books that Star had been familiar with. As Pauline started the engine Pauline began dictating her version of what had just happened while Star transcribed.

"Patient presented with a serious case of autism, parents speculate this was a result of botched vaccination at age four. Patients older brother and younger sister had no such symptoms..."


	4. The line of succession.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A more suitable introduction to the Hekapoo/Solaria relationship. 
> 
> And hey, who here wants to finally meet Sir Roderick?

Hekapoo strode with every bit of confidence that she could muster through Mewni castle.

She had some business to take care of.

A door burst open.

"Solaria, we have to talk, what you did was... What?"

Solaria looked up and asked, "can I help you?"

Hekapoo replied in a tone of utter disbelief.

"You... Knit!?"

"Yes, I find it very relaxing. Why do you look so shocked?"

"I don't know, it's just not something I expected you to do."

"Get to know me a little more Hekapoo, you might find me to be amazing."

"Right, about that, what you almost did to me that day in the forest was outrageous."

"I agree, and I'm sorry about that."

"You, agree?"

"Yeah, you know, heat of the moment, bloodlust, all that sort of thing. I really should have handled that better and I apologize. Sheesh, I was acting like a horny bar wench from some drunkards fantasy. Speaking of the forest though, what was the source of those portals you were so worried about?"

Hekapoo made up a lie.

"It was the Alvarius kid, got into his fathers scissors and thought they were a toy. I told him to knock it off and that was the end of it."

"Good, we wouldn't want anyone undermining the very fabric of reality now would we?"

"Yeah, so, about the forest, did, did you mean what you said to me? Or was that just bloodlust too?"

As Solaria kept on knitting she murmured, "I meant every word. You really are quite beautiful and I would really like to see what lies beneath your gown. That said, I need to be honest with you. Our relationship could never be anything more than a casual one. Seeing as how we can't produce an heir I will have to be impregnated at some point and that will require a male Mewman. Sorry Hekapoo, but I can't marry you."

"Whose talking about marriage? I'm, okay, I admit I would be up to a, more intimate knowledge of you."

"Nice, well then, how do you want to go about this? I keep knitting and we keep talking? Or we jump straight to tearing each other's clothes off? Perhaps we have dinner first?"

"How about we keep talking and you keep knitting?"

Without even looking up from the blanket she was creating Solaria concluded.

"Sounds fine to me."

* * *

 

The coronation of Queen Star.

The funeral of King River was a, not particularly mournful occasion. People were still furious over his handling of the Battle of Mewni. That rage, and perhaps, gleefulness was concealed whenever his daughter appeared though.

On a bright, but unseasonably cold day the King was interred in his family mausoleum. Practically everyone who talked to Star said some variation of "I'm so sorry" and "I swear we will get whoever did this."

They all just flowed into one message to Star. She couldn't appreciate a word they said. She just wanted her dad back. She wanted her mother back too. It just wasn't fair.

Now amidst all this. Surviving the battle of Mewni, almost dying at the hands of Toffee, then having to kill him in an extremely brutal way. Now she had to go through one more ritual. A ritual she had been dreading for much of her life.

She didn't really want to be queen. She didn't want that responsibility. She wanted to go back to Earth and forget all this had happened.

But that wasn't an option. Mewni needed her, the multiverse needed her. Her mother had caused circumstances that had created the worst outbreak of the most powerful monsters in the multiverse and she had to clean up that mess.

She knew that she would need help.

Amidst the opening rituals the nobility and commoners discussed amongst themselves who Star would pick as regent.

An obvious choice was the hero of the Ganwilic hostage crisis. Sir Roderick Spode. Viscount of the Mewnian Provence of Halloa.

Other names were floated.

Sir Greok, a clever young administrator of the Johansen kingdom.

Perhaps someone from the realm of the Ponyheads?

Prince Tom?

Laughter exploded when that name came up.

"A demon Prince in charge of Mewni!? That hothead is far too unstable for this job."

"But isn't he a lover of Star?"

"Ex lover, she would have to be pretty stupid to get back together with him."

Standing amidst a group of nobles Sir Roderick asked.

"Well, what about that dashing young chap from Earth, Marco Diaz? The queen seems quite taken with him."

The laughs became louder than when the demon Princes name was mentioned.

"A foreigner as regent! and a commoner at that? Oh, Roderick, you really do go too far sometimes."

Roderick replied.

"I don't know, he seems pretty smart, and he seemed rather determined to serve our nation during the battle of Mewni... Even if his contribution mostly consisted of getting captured and trying to punch an immortal creature."

"Oh knock it off Roderick, a child foreigner in charge? please."

Roderick smiled to himself and took his seat for the coronation.

The ritual was short, Star walked up to the Obsidian Altar where the Winds of Whalk, a manifestation of the spirits of the first Mewnians picked up the crown and whisked it around the temple.

This was the way the winds were. It always made it seem that someone else was going to get the crown until it placed the crown on the heir to the Butterfly bloodline. People believed that this was the ancestors continuing to bless the family.

What they didn't know was this was just an odd magical phenomena. The winds were naturally drawn to the most powerful source of magic in the area. Today, that happened to be Star.

As the crown came to rest daintily on her head, Queen Star was expected to give a speech. As she looked out onto the crowd she began.

"We have been through a lot together over this past month. I can see that I have to be there for all of you as you have tried to be there for me. It humbles me to consider what everyone here has been through. So, it is with great solemness that I pick..."

Her eyes darted around the room.

She still wasn't sure who she would pick as regent.

" _Hekapoo?"_

" _No, can't be an MHC member."_

_"Ponyhead?"_

_"No chance in hell, she would burn the kingdom down."_

_"Tom?"_

_"Same problem."_

_"Greok?"_

_"My uncle? No, he would remind me of dad too much"_

_"Sir Roderick?_

_"I barely know the guy, and he creeps me out."_

There was only one choice she could see.

"Marco Diaz, of Earth as my new regent."

Gasps rang out. But she wasn't done yet.

"I'm picking Marco because it is well past time that we bring Mewni into the future. For the past year I have lived on Earth and people there have a life that most here can't even dream of. We must reform the economy, increase trade, bring in new technologies that will make all of our lives better. Beyond that we must grow past the racism and fanaticism of our history."

She bit her lip, she knew they weren't going to like this, but it had to be said.

"It is my intention to, in time, make any monster who is not a danger to themselves or others a full citizen of Mewni. For too many years we have been at war with ourselves. The monsters have demonstrated to me that they are willing to work with us, we must demonstrate that we are willing to work with them. Yevgeny Bulgbov provided help that me and my family desperately needed during the battle. If the rest of the monsters have one ounce of the honor that Yevgeny has showed me then we owe them the benefit of the doubt."

"Thank you for your time, now if you will pardon me I must get to work to make a new Mewni. One that we can all be proud of."

Amidst the nervous murmurings of the crowd there was one being who was perfectly silent. No one really noticed but Sir Roderick was beaming. The deepest smile he had, a smile of a person who was looking forward to a brief, but ugly fight, that the other party would lose. A smile of joy and rage. Queen Star had just delivered all that he had ever wanted and so much more.

Appointing a foreign child as regent would have been more than enough. He didn't want the job, it would have forced him to continue working within the system, and he was tired of that. This would allow him to make his point that all these ideas flowing in from earth were dangerous and needed to be gotten rid of.

But her plan to make monsters into citizens!? The queen would have been better off going into people's houses at night and eating their children's toes for how popular that idea would be in Mewni.

This realm had been run a certain way for a very long time.

And Sir Roderick was going to illustrate to Queen Star that there were plenty of people in Mewni who wanted to keep it that way.


	5. Challenge returned.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of Marco's decent into the madness that is politics.

The dreams were growing more intense every night.

Like something was calling out to him.

The fantasies were growing stranger and stranger. He was in a dress, the one he had worn at St. Olga's. He was walking on a beach, there was someone swimming through the water. A flash of platinum blonde hair with a streak of aquamarine identified who it was to him immediately.

But as she swam closer to shore he saw that something was a little off.

Someone had turned Jackie Lynn Thomas into a mermaid.

Yet he wasn't shocked by this, he wasn't shocked by wearing a dress either. He felt profoundly comfortable with the whole scene. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He shouted to her.

"So, are you enjoying your swim, miss Thomas?"

_"Wait, that doesn't sound like me?"_

She rested atop a rock, flashing him those gorgeous green eyes and replied.

"Yeah, but I would like it more if you joined me."

"I don't think I could keep up with you, I can never keep up with you. Besides I don't have a set of swim trunks."

She let go of the rock, floating on her back she continued.

"Well, it's not like I'm wearing anything either. Come on, are you really going to sit by for the rest of your life while you make up your balloon?"

Marco looked up. He was holding a string. At the end of it was Hekapoo, floating in the air. But it wasn't like how Star had described Hekapoo following her defeat at the hand of Toffee. She was completely conscious, she looked down at Marco and smiled.

"That's a cute girl muscles, soooo, what's it going to be. Fire or water?"

Jackie stared at him with an obvious intent. Asking in a cheerful tone.

"Perhaps a little bit of both?"

Marco was speechless. He had a clear picture of a topless Jackie Lynn Thomas and everything beneath Hekapoo's skirt. He couldn't decide, he kept looking back and forth between them and squeaked.

"Do I have to chose?"

Hekapoo glared down at him and spoke.

"You will have to chose."

Jackie spoke.

"Or someone else will choose for you. That's just the way life is."

Hekapoo spoke again.

"Sorry kid."

 

Marco woke from the dream. He hadn't heard her walk in. As he shuffled back to consciousness he asked.

"Um, Star, what's... Holy fuck what have you done!?!"

Star's hands were covered in blood. She replied in a detached tone.

"I'm, there's something happening. I don't know what it is, it might be magic, it might be my grief over my parents driving me insane. There's a screeching noise, this endless screeching noise, it's calling to me. But I don't want to be called. I just want to sleep, I want to sleep until I wake up from this nightmare. I want to wake up and see my parents waiting for me. I don't know what it is but I, I have been going places, hunting, trying to find what is calling to me. But I can't find it, I have been looking for what has been calling me. I can't find it. No matter how far I go, no matter how many portals I make, I can't, I just can't get there..."

She held up the wand, cradling it gently.

"It's driving me insane! I snuck into Hekapoo's place and took one of the maps that she has been working on to track the escaped monsters. I found a Dodecagator, I asked him if he knew who killed Dad. He didn't know anything, I tore each of his heads off, looking for information. I, I wasn't supposed to do that was I Marco?"

Marco got out of the bed and stated, "um probably not. How about we get you to a bathroom and get that blood off of you?"

Star stood up and replied, "okay, that's probably a good idea."

Marco led her to the bathroom she had made for him, a perfect replica of the one they had shared at his parents home. As he turned to leave she started disrobing. He was about to exit when she cast rainbow fist punch, slamming the door shut. He looked up to see she still had the wand, it was covered in blood. Still in that disconnected tone she stated.

"Don't leave, please, I'm a mess, I'm all slippery, I'm worried that I might fall. I need you to make sure that I don't fall, Marco."

Marco nervously strode towards her and helped her take the rest of her clothes off. As she took off her underwear he felt deeply uncomfortable. Of all the dreams that he could have woken up from she just had to wake him from a Jackie dream. She would have never dragged him into this kind of a situation. This was all too raw, in every sense of the word.

Star got in the shower and washed the blood and filth off. Once she was done she stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her head and walked back to Marcos bed. Marco stood there feeling awkward as hell as she sat down on the bed and began to absentmindedly pet a snoozing laser puppy. She looked at him and asked.

"Marco, I need a hug."

"Star, I, I don't think that would be right. You clearly don't seem like yourself right now. How about we get some clothes on you first."

"Marco, I need a hug."

"Star, I, I don't think I should do that."

She looked at him sternly.

"Marco, I need... I need someone to hold me right now. I need to feel something right now besides pain. If you won't then I am going straight to Tom's place."

Marco grimaced and walked towards Star sitting beside her and giving her soaking wet body as distant a hug as he could manage. She just sat there, motionless as she began to cry.

She cried for her parents, she cried for herself, she even cried for the dead Dodecagator. Toffee deserved her wrath, the monsters attacking that village who had dragged her away from her father deserved it. That Dodecagator did not deserve it.

Marco held her for as long as he could.

Once she stopped crying she stood up and looked down at herself.

"Oh wow, I, I uh, I really went somewhere didn't I?"

"Yeah Star, I'm worried about you."

"Oh don't worry Marco, I'll be fine, as long as I have you to be strong for me I will be fine."

She leaned in and kissed him.

When he didn't immediately back up she jumped on top of him.

As the laser puppies woke from their sleep and dispersed Star drove deeper into the kiss. Marco pried her off of him and stated.

"Star, I know what you have said to me, and I have been glad to help out around here with your parents gone. But I have told you that I'm into Jackie. This is wrong and you know it."

Star pulled away. Marco was in genuine fear; she forced him down and asked.

"Marco, what does Jackie have... that I don't? Is it the eyes? Is it her tits? She has me beat there, but if that's all she has over me then you are a very petty little man, Diaz. What has she ever given you, a couple of silly little dates?"

She forced him down, "I've given you the multiverse. I can give you anything you want. Heck, I might even be able to come up with a spell to make me look like her. Or someone even more attractive. What do you want Marco? Tell me what you want, I want to give it to you. Anything at all."

Her grip was digging into his shoulders painfully. Marco didn't want to fight her, he wasn't sure he could win against her without the wand, he knew he wouldn't stand a chance in hell if she had the wand. Marco's feelings towards Star had been growing ever more complex with her admission of having feelings towards him. The events in Mewni had only stoked that fire.

He didn't want it to be like this. He didn't want to decide, not here, not now.

He looked into her eyes.

Howling hunger.

A hunger he had seen before, once or twice.

In the eyes of Tom.

He couldn't afford to lose her to Tom. He had been mincing around the grounds of Mewni castle an awful lot lately. Helping out where he could, dealing with the escaped monsters. A truly horrifying thought blasted through his mind. If she went back to Tom in this state Star might get pregnant with his child. That child would be the heir to the throne of Mewni. That child would have all the power of both the wand and the Lucitor family line. If that child had one tenth of Tom's anger issues then Mewni was...

Marco replied, "okay Star if this is what you want, then I..."

His words were cut short by the noise of Star ripping his pajama top open. As buttons flew every which way he thought.

_"I know you can't, but please forgive me for this, Jackie."_

 

The next day Marco was in the great hall of Mewni castle, alone. Star was still sleeping in his bed. He had snuck out. Breakfast had been served, as he chewed on his meatloaf he tried to digest what had happened to him. He couldn't, he just couldn't, he was utterly lost in thought trying.

Hekapoo walked up behind him and slapped the back of his head. As the hair sizzled away he slammed his head into the table, grabbed the singed spot and started to cry.

"Whoa, muscles, what happened to you?"

He whispered.

"I dreamed about you last night, did you dream about me?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"I know you are busy, but can you spare me some time to talk? I really need to talk to someone Hekapoo."

She sat down next to him and stated, "go ahead."

"I have flashes of what you put me through sometimes. Memories of your domain. People, monsters, battles, weird magical rituals, languages that I don't understand anymore. You put me through a literal hell. But I remember what kept me going through all of it, the reward. The belief that what was waiting for me at the end would be worth it. I'm in a different situation now Hekapoo, I'm wondering if I should give up and go home."

"Really Marco, really? The insanely badass Marco Diaz, with a body of sculpted iron just one dimension away and a mind hardened against the worst shit that I could throw at you is thinking of giving up? Tell me, what is the challenge that you are giving up on?"

"Mewni, the challenge is Mewni, and keeping Star from losing her mind. After all she has been through I don't think that I should... Hey wait a second, are you saying that I could get my 30 year old body back by going back to your dimension?"

"Yeah, you didn't know that?"

"No, I did not. I will have to see about that sometime soon. Anyway, Star, she is losing it. Losing her parents and hunting the escaped monsters is really stressing her out, last night she..."

Hekapoo turned away from him, she could see what had happened written all over his face. He had lost his virginity yet again. The first time had been to one of her clones. She felt awful about that, it had been a transgression on her part. But what really worried her was what he had done to the next twelve clones he captured after that. That was when he started keeping that creepy little book. The book in which he kept his kill count.

After he had snuffed clone number 36 she realized what she had done. She had pissed off a being that couldn't be stopped once he knew what he wanted. Sometimes such an entity is not even stopped by death. They become a wraith, seeking vengeance for what had been done to them. That's all these entities were, they lived for nothing but revenge.

After clone 36 she had gone easy on him. After giving him his scissors she had kept an eye on him. When he snuffed clone 36 he had a look in his eyes of perfect madness. She could see what he had become. A man with the raw determination to kill a god. Such men were incredibly dangerous and normally she avoided them. But when he returned to his fourteen year old self she had been quite relieved that he had apparently snapped back to his previous, innocent self. She had believed that she had seen the last of those eyes.

She hadn't.

Those eyes were back, staring at a half eaten slice of meatloaf.

She knew that she had handled their first meeting like a jackass. She should have just beaten the shit out of him and dumped him back on Earth. But no, she just had to play a game with Star Butterfly's bodyguard didn't she?

She knew that she had to atone for that.

She asked, "Marco, why don't you just go back to Earth? I seem to remember you mentioning in our sixteen years messing with each other there was a girl there you liked. You seemed very upset with me for keeping you from her. Earth, it's your home, wouldn't you be more comfortable there than here?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because of Tom. If Tom and Star start dating again then that's it for Mewni. This kingdom burns."

Hekapoo grimaced, she wasn't quite as up to date on the happenings in Mewni as some. But she knew that revolution and chaos were brewing. With a pair like Queen Star and Prince Tom in charge, well. She squeaked out.

"Tom... Tom has been doing better than he used to be. He seems to be growing up. Star..."

Marco broke the silence.

"You have seen her fight, you know it better than I do. Star has become a berserker. She lives for bloodshed now. Her and Tom in charge of Mewni would be a disaster and you know it."

Hekapoo panicked.

"But it's not your disaster! This isn't your problem. Mewni is a mess, it has been a mess for hundreds of years. You can't be expected to solve this all by yourself. Please Marco, if you won't go back to Earth, then come with me. I can show you things that will make Mewni look like nothing, things that will put everything in perspective."

Marco took two more bites out of his breakfast and stood up.

"It is in perspective. If I left and Mewni burned to the ground I could never forgive myself. I like it here too much, every day I go out and I find some new challenge. Do you have any idea how much needs to be fixed here? What can be fixed. You were right, I have to choose, and I choose to help the Mewnian people."

As Marco walked away Hekapoo shook her head and thought.

_"I really, really shouldn't have challenged that kid."_


	6. The right tool for the job?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> StarFan's pistol got melted, let's find out about her new one.

The next day Pauline went by Alan Yates's shop. As soon as Pauline walked through the door Alan showed her the preposterously expensive pistol. She examined it for a moment, then put it back.

"Alan, I really can't."

"No arguing, that ridiculous thing is yours now, I have my side of the paperwork already filled out. It's probably for the best, I have been trying to sell that thing for months now. People love to come in and finger fuck that thing, but no one has actually bought one."

Pauline stated. 

"How about we compromise, I'll take it for the wholesale price."

"Come on Long, I know you aren't poor, but I know you don't have $7,000 cash lying around. Just take the damn gun. Your partner can pick a few things too."

Star looked up from absentmindedly examining an M249S and stated, "huh, no, that's fine. Guns aren't really my thing anymore."

"You sure, Free is free."

Star looked around and observed.

"Okay, fine, I suppose if this will help me get past my weapons phobia."

She looked through the cases and pointed to a 1911 pattern pistol. Alan took out the pistol she had pointed to and explained what it was.

"Ah, Colt 9mm factory engraved, a very nice choice."

"Huh, so I picked wisely? Nice, I usually never win at these riddles. I just picked that one because it has Warnicorns all over it."

Pauline face palmed and explained.

"Uh, Star, those are horses."

Star looked closer and said, "eh, got distracted by the spear, close enough. So, what's the cheapest 9mm pistol you sell here?"

"That would be the Hi Point."

"Okay, I'll take twenty of those."

Both Alan and Pauline exclaimed simultaneously. "Twenty? Why?"

Star spoke in a haughty tone.

"I have my reasons."

Alan asked in genuine curiosity

"What reason, you starting a gang?"

In a totally neutral tone Star replied.

"Yeah, I told you, reasons."

"Okay, but I don't have 20 Hi Points here. I think we have twelve."

Star nodded and Pauline stated, "okay, one Field Pistol, one Colt, a dozen Hi Points and every box of 7.5 caliber ammo you have then. Geeez Star, you are the weirdest chick I have ever met."

 

Pauline examined her new pistol very carefully. Just because she had gotten it for free didn't mean that she didn't value it. If anything because of what she had done to get it she valued it almost too much to ever think of taking it into battle.

Almost.

While Star unloaded her new arsenal from the trunk of the Porsche, Pauline continued her study of the pistol. It was quite different from any handgun she had ever handled. It was huge, powerful, well made, almost otherworldly in its sheer size, mass and quality.

The gun itself was an enigma. No one could find a straight answer as to what task it was designed for. There were rumors of shadowy Nato contracts, hunters wanting a specialty pistol. It was powerful enough to be used for many things. But it was far more expensive than almost any comparable gun. It was too fancy and expensive to stand a chance at getting a military contract. Too heavy and overpowered for the humdrum world of police work. Most hunters couldn't afford or justify something this exotic. Even compared to other powerful handguns, the FK Brno was over the top. This thing looked like it belonged in a cartoon, yet here it was in her hand. As Pauline looked over the thing all these thoughts and more poured through her head as she wondered.

_"Who made this thing, and why?"_

She examined the bullets, these were designed to do three things. Go fast, strike hard and do so accurately. These could accomplish all that better than any handgun round on the planet. Pauline shuddered for a moment as a thought trickled through her mind.

_"This is too much, this is too nice for me. I should give this back. I shouldn't even get paid for saving kids, who wouldn't if they had the chance?."_

Star said, while waving the wand, "yeah, I get it, it's a nice slab of iron. But why are you even thinking of using that when you have this? Carrying that against most of the things I deal with? It would be like taking a knife to a nuke fight."

Pauline remembered that she had an exiled queen from another dimension as her partner now. So perhaps she should reclassify what she thought was too nice for her. A deranged smile crossed her face as she put on her best drill sergeant voice and shouted.

"The enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand!"

Star looked sideways. Pauline sighed and said, "yeah I know I should knock it off with the pop culture references. I'm just saying that the fight is not always to the strongest, or the race to fastest, or the magical duel to the most powerful. Though I will admit that's usually the way to bet. I'm also saying we are watching Starship Troopers tonight no matter how many flashbacks it gives you."

"As for the wand I don't have that, it is your wand, Star; a family heirloom. It should stay in your family."

Star pointed at Pauline's cheeks, "you are my family now."

Pauline blushed and looked away. "Okay, the real reason is because of a combination of, "it's cool," and. If we get in a fight, I need you to keep the wand so you can dish out the most damage. You are much better at fighting with that than I am, while I am better with something like this."

"Okay, so are we leaving it as is or" Star shimmied the wand yet again and asked in a seductive tone. "Souping it up?"

"Souping it up?"

"Yeah, I think I can make a few magical modifications."

Pauline looked down, "is that why you asked him for a dozen Hi Points? So you could experiment?"

Star smiled and reached into the pockets of her winter coat in an impossibly cute gesture she took out a box and presented Pauline with.

"Fifty rounds of magic 9mm bullets. I want to see if they work in your guns."

"Star this is cool, but isn't something like this asking for trouble? Might this give anyone who uses this gun something akin to the power of the wand?"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure that you still have to be a magic user to use these effectively. Besides, the magic inside any of these bullets isn't even a fraction of a fraction of the wands power."

"Didn't you tell me there something called anti-magic, a whole planet full of it? What would happen if someone made a bullet out of that stuff?"

"Ha, you don't think we tried that? Anti-magic is a nasty, crumbly substance. If you try to make a bullet out of it, it disintegrates before it even leaves the barrel. When they first started importing guns to Mewni people across the multiverse have been experimenting with anti magic guns. None of them work, and even if they did..."

Star tapped the front sight of the colossal pistol in Pauline's hands. Implying, "we'd just kill them with non magic weapons."

Pauline put away the Field Pistol and took Stars box of literal magic ammo.

Pauline loaded up a single round in a magazine, which was loaded into one of the Hi points. The slide was dropped and the gun immediately exploded.

Pauline looked at her mangled hand with curiosity as it pulled itself back together, she shouted.

"It's a damn good thing I had a shield around my face, Star, or that would have probably blinded me."

"Sorry, sorry, I think I know what I screwed up. Let me make some adjustments."

Star held the wand over the next bullet. Which Pauline loaded into yet another Hi Point. This one chambered the round, then immediately turned into a block of ice and shattered. Star grumbled.

"Ugh! Returnio armius Normirini again!?"

As Pauline pried the frozen pistol remains out of her hand she asked.

"Um, what?"

"Hang on, I have to make a few more adjustments."

Three failures later Star had stabilized the ammo enough for it to survive firing. The first successful shot was a tornado spell. The second was something that destabilized the molecular bonds of the target causing it to explode. The third was a rain of lavender flavored soda, which is apparently a thing in at least one universe. The fourth one just played some pleasant music instead of going bang and whiz like a normal bullet.

Pauline stepped back and announced. "Impressive, I think I have some things I want to try for myself."

Pauline examined the bullets, then examined her Field Pistol. She fired a few normal rounds out of it to check the function. It was as accurate and powerful as she had hoped. Then she took the wand from Star. Using her experience as a guide she cast a similar spell on the bullets. With one important difference.

Star was placing the spells in the bullets before they were loaded. Pauline left the magic as a blank slate. She would cast the spell just before she fired. This also made the magic more stable, a genuine concern with the higher velocity of the Field Pistols bullets compared to 9mm.

Pauline aimed at a boulder and carefully lined up the front sight with the pistols unique, "butterfly" rear sight and concentrated on one thing.

"Explosive."

The boulder detonated with one shot.

Aiming at another boulder she focused on something else.

"Water."

The rock was doused in several gallons of water which seemingly came from nowhere.

She aimed at a tree and imagined yet something else.

"Glitter bomb!"

A pound of glitter exploded all over the unfortunate pine.

The slide of the giant pistol locked back, empty. Pauline put it back on its box and pointed at the wand.

"Star, you use that thing to style your hair?"

"Yes, why?"

"Please stop doing that, I don't want you to miss-think something and blow your head off."

"Ah you wuss, now, how about we try my new gun?"

While Star loaded and shot her much cheaper and more practical pistol. Pauline had no more concern on what the origin of the Field Pistol was. Just a healthy appreciation of its power and perhaps a little subconscious relief at the fact that it functioned very well with their magic. Perhaps a little too well, almost as if the gun had been specifically designed to work with Butterfly family magics. Unbeknownst to Star and StarFan this gun had been specifically designed for unearthly threats.

Though the gun had been designed and entirely built on Earth. The design requirements, impetus and the initial funding for this pistol came from a Mewman. In many ways the pistol reflected his own sophisticated tastes. A man with a short temper, a sense of humor that grew more sadistic with his every waking moment of life, a near limitless thirst for power, and an iron will. The Field Pistol had been one of his many little side projects.

A man like Sir Roderick had many enemies, powerful enemies. Enemies not usually defeated by mortal weapons. So sir Roderick had commissioned the development of the Field Pistol as part of a vast program he initiated to reform the Mewnian military. The Field Pistol, as expensive and exotic as it was, was intended to be the sidearm of the new Mewnian armed forces.

Sir Roderick was determined to make Mewni into a stronger country by any means he deemed necessary. The Field Pistol never got a chance to serve him. He died before the gun went into limited production. Though Sir Roderick did live long enough to acquire various other weapons that would serve him well in his attempt on the throne of Mewni.

The Field Pistol waited. It had no animus, it had no sentience. It had none of the many personalities that accompanied Stars wand. It just had a design that was aimed at a specific purpose. That purpose was to destroy unusual, magically enhanced targets, rapidly, from a distance, again and again.

If the pistol had an animus, it was to serve its design purpose. It would wait patiently for its opportunity to fulfill this purpose.


	7. God, The Devil and Janna.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the fun of fanfiction is introducing outside characters. Sir Roderick is kind of an import from another fictional universe. 
> 
> So how about I introduce you to someone a little more, original.

Around a month after the battle of Mewni.

 

Ferguson was really looking forward to this. Marco had been gone all summer and he was just about bursting at the thought of seeing him again. Let alone playing some D&D with him. The one monkey wrench in the works was Alphonso, he was sick with a cold. So Ferguson had invited his cousin Robert Recorde to sit in.

Ferguson O'durguson really didn't enjoy hanging out with his cousin. He considered Bob to be nerdy even by his standards. Bob's conversations constantly spiraling off into technical conversations too elaborate for most people to follow. Worse than that Bob considered most of Ferguson's hobbies boring. He was much happier calculating pi than rolling a sixteen sided die.

What Ferguson didn't understand just yet was that despite their lack of common interests Bob loved him to death. There were so few people who could keep up with his swirling, ever unfolding logic. Who would tolerate his flights of fancy. And there was no one else who did this who was his age. Ferguson was a needed link to reality for Bob. As much as he was annoyed by the absurd amount of rules and rituals to playing D&D. He wouldn't have traded a single game with Ferguson for the world.

Bob waited as Ferguson and Janna set everything up. This was Bobs first time meeting Janna. She seemed interesting, a little weird. But he didn't expect to make much of a connection with her. As bad as he was with other boys Bob was even worse around girls.

They all waited impatiently for someone named Marco Diaz to show up. Ferguson had told him one unbelievable story about Marco after another. He was looking forward to finally meeting this Diaz kid, just so he could debunk all these wild stories. Bob didn't go to Echo Creek High. He lived two towns over and went to a magnate school. He hadn't seen any of the wackiness that Marco and his friend, an alleged princess from another dimension had caused. Other dimensions, while they may have been physically possible; surely if someone had breached the barriers between them he would have found out about it by now. The mere suggestion that fourteen year old children would have this power was simply preposterous.

He was looking forward to tearing this Diaz kid apart with his cold, unyielding logic.

As Marco came down the stairs. Bob began sizing him up.

Something wasn't right. He carried himself like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had the airs of a grown man in a fourteen year olds body.

A broken, grown man.

Marco slumped into his chair and said a dismissive, "hey."

Ferguson asked, "so Marco, have you enjoyed your summer vacation in Mewni?"

"No, not really, it's awful, just awful. It's one crisis after another. The royal family is barely hanging on, people are starving, the nobility is scheming and plotting. Oh and my girlfriend has been dragooned into the biggest monster hunt in the history of the multiverse. So, yeah can we talk about anything else besides Mewni?"

Bob blinked, Diaz didn't seem to be lying. All this sounded like the truth, but it made no sense. Marco looked at him and stated.

"You must be Bob, Ferg has told me a lot about you. He says you are really annoying."

"Marco, geeze, manners much!? I'm sorry Bob I didn't really say that."

Bob replied.

"No no, I appreciate the honesty. But what you are talking about doesn't make any sense to me Marco. Where is this... Mewni you are talking about?"

It was Marcos turn to blink, he stared at Ferguson and asked. "You didn't tell him? he doesn't know? Ferg, I'm hurt."

"No, I told him, he just doesn't believe me."

"You don't believe him eh? Lucky you, lucky lucky you. The wider multiverse is a very scary place Mr Recorde. You are probably better off not knowing about it."

"Not knowing? what kind of a person could ever say that someone is better off not knowing anything? Knowledge is power, that isn't just a platitude that teachers spout off."

Marco smiled and replied.

"Platitude, that's a big word for someone your age. Ferguson said you were smart."

"I try, sometimes I say something that sounds clever. Most of the time I just wind up sounding like a weirdo. At least that's what most of the people I go to school with say."

Marco's smile grew wider.

"Tell you what Mr Recorde, I have a project that I could use some help with. If you are as good with numbers as Ferg says you are it might turn into a job. The risks are high, but the rewards will be... Galactic. If you want knowledge I know places where you can get more of it than you can possibly imagine."

Bob tilted his head, this Marco Diaz had piqued his curiosity. He might be psychotic, but he certainly seemed to have no lack of confidence for someone his age. Bob replied.

"You have a deal on one condition Mr Diaz. Don't call me Mr Recorde, it makes you sound like a tool."

Marco made a snorting chuckle and turned to Ferguson. "Ferg, do you mind if I take your cousin to Mewni for a few minutes? We will be right back, I have something I want to show him."

Janna chimed in happily, "can I come with?"

Marco nodded in the affirmative.

Ferguson sighed and stated, "okay, I suppose I should come too. I don't even want to imagine how much trouble I'm going to be in if Bob vanishes on my watch."

Marco nodded politely and took out his pair of dimensional scissors. He stood up and cut a portal right in the middle of the O'durguson family basement.

Bob fell out of his chair. As he stood up he walked over to the portal and started breathing irregularly. He whispered.

"This, this is impossible."

Marco replied.

"Unfortunately for you Bob, it is all very possible. You have a decision to make. You can stay in this basement, or step through this portal. I should warn you, a warning no one ever gave me. If you go through this portal your life will get weirder and wilder than you could ever imagine. Unlike me you are going to get a choice. As I said the risks are high, but the rewards are even higher."

Marco spoke in a solemn tone.

"So what's it going to be?"

Bob didn't care about that, as he examined the tessellating patterns in the spiral portal all he could think was.

_"A dimensional portal? an honest to god dimensional portal! Even if I went to work for DARPA I probably would never see one of these and this kid just opened a stable inter-dimensional portal... With a pair of scissors!?"_

Robert Recorde had one passion in life, learning. His interests were diverse, but for him it always came back to three primary things. Music, usually in the form of what he composed on his violin. Mathematics, of an increasingly advanced nature, and God.

He was unusual among fourteen year olds in Southern California for a bunch of reasons. This often led to him being unable to fit in. Amongst most kids he was unable to communicate on their level. Amongst other highly intelligent people he was rejected and derided for his abiding faith in God. The cherry on top was the fact that he considered himself nondenominational. Though nominally a Christian, Bob always thought God was far too grand, too vast to ever be properly worshiped within the restrictions of any earthly religion he had ever found.

Music and mathematics were the keys to understanding the mind of God to Bob. Knowledge led to deeper understanding of both. He thought he had a pretty decent understanding of things. Then along comes this Marco Diaz to tear him a whole new galaxy, quite literally.

Well okay, cut him a whole new galaxy if you want to get persnickety about the meaning of the word literally.

He had to know, he had to learn, he saw what looked like an opportunity to dip down into the mind of God.

He looked at Marco, he was waiting patiently. He looked at Ferguson. He looked bored and slightly aggravated by the interruption. He looked at Janna, she was beaming. There was something about her smile that gave him the final push. It was a knowing smile, there was something about that knowing that gave him faith.

Bob held his breath and stepped through the portal.

On the other side he found himself in a library. He had definitely gone somewhere. But he had no idea where. Janna and Ferguson stepped through the portal soon after, finally Marco walked through, sealing it behind him. "This is the archive of the kingdom of Mewni, the reason I brought you here is because the kingdoms finances are a complete mess. They were a mess before I showed up and... Well, let's just say that things have been a bit chaotic around here. If you are up to it I would like you to take a look at our books and see if you can make any sense of them."

Marco pointed to a large leather bound ledger. Bob opened it, he recognized the numbers, but the writing was as illegible to him as Sanskrit. Bob asked, "so you want me to be your accountant?"

"Pretty much."

"I can't read this, well the numbers make sense, but I don't know what the words mean."

"I can help with that."

"Marco, uh, this is interesting but if I wanted a job as an accountant I could probably get one before I got out of high school. This doesn't exactly say high risk and galactic rewards to me."

Marco chuckled and sighed, "come with me."

As they left the archive Ferguson left them for a moment. He had spied a bathroom and he desperately needed to pee after his little dimensional breach.

As Marco, Janna and Bob walked down a hallway Bob noticed that everyone in this place was dressed like refugees from the Middle Ages. There were even honest to god knights in armor. Marco opened a door to a gym of some sort. In a large open area he noticed what appeared to be two young women fighting with staffs.

As Bob looked closer he noticed one of the women had horns, and a flame above her head. Nothing about this woman made any sense, as he tried to puzzle out the situation he heard someone say in a Russian accent.

"Come on Star, I seen you move faster than that! Snuff her good!"

Bob turned his head to see a frog-man-monster... thing! leaning against the wall behind him. The monster waved cordially to him and introduced himself in a friendly tone. "Yevgeny Bulgolyubov, nice to meet you."

Bob whimpered out, "nice to meet you too."

The woman with a flame over her head shouted over the clattering of staffs. "I'll snuff you good in a minute!"

Yevgeny shouted, "what, you think they call me Buffrog just because it sounds cool? Once Star beats you I'll show you how a frog fights my dear little Hekapoo."

The woman with a flame over her head began to move really fast. Faster than Bob's eyes could track. With three resounding strikes she broke the blonde woman's staff. Placing her in a chokehold. The blonde woman growled.

"Aargh! You cheated!"

The other woman replied.

"Winning isn't all that counts, just the only thing that counts. You still need to learn the rules, Star. But you also need to know when to bend them, and also to break them if need be. Above all else you need to understand that others are willing to break the rules too. People are going to cheat you. They will try to cheat you out of your power, your wealth, even your very life. When that happens you cheat them right back."

Bob started clapping, almost involuntarily.

Hekapoo released Star from her hold. As both of them gasped in relief Hekapoo leaned on her staff, pointed to Bob and asked.

"So who is this kid?"

Marco explained.

"Friend of a friend, I'm thinking of hiring him to clear up some issues in Mewnian government finances. Some kind of numbers whiz."

Hekapoo got a curious look in her eye and asked him directly.

"Numbers eh? How many miles between your sun and the star Alpha Centauri? That's 4.37 light years btw."

Hekapoo smiled arrogantly, there were Earthlings who could do these calculations on the fly. But not many.

"25 trillion seven hundred and eighty three billion miles, roughly."

The smile was wiped off her face as she continued.

"Mass of the Higgs bosun?"

"Around 126 gigaelectron volts, last I heard."

She got a very coy look on her face as she asked.

"Percentage of vanadium in high-speed steel?"

"I'm not a metallurgist, but I imagine it varies? Probably not very high."

"How do you feel about concepts like honor and truth?"

"I haven't had many chances in my life to be honorable, I try to be. Truth is the most important thing in my life. No matter how harsh or difficult to understand it may be."

Hekapoo blinked and smiled. She looked at Marco and stated. "Hire this man. If you don't then I will."

Janna held up her hand and asked, "hey, if you guys are handing out jobs can I have one too?"

Hekapoo smiled again. A much more genuine smile this time, then her face went neutral. Like she had just smelled something off. She walked towards Bob and looked him over, lifting up his arm, examining his eyes.

Bob was terrified, he was at eye level with the most strikingly beautiful, yet terrifying woman he had ever seen. Her horns and unbelievably pale skin would have been scary enough but those combined with all her other obviously nonhuman features was heart stopping. Yet...

He wanted to see both eyes. He wanted to understand what this... Thing was.

Hekapoo announced, "hmm, there's something not quite right with this guy, but I can't put my finger on it."

Quicker than he could see she cut a pocket dimension around him. He was trapped in a stable cylinder of clear transdimensional space. Hekapoo rotated the cylinder so he could see everyone around the room. She judged his reactions to Buffrog, Janna, Marco and Star.

As she stepped inside the cylinder she engaged her camouflage spell. Giving her the appearance of a normal, but stunningly beautiful human being. He stood there, nervous as hell. She examined him, via a combination of sampling the molecules he was putting off and her various extra sensory perceptions that a dimensional sorcerer of even the most basic level had to acquire.

She told him, "you seem smart, curious, clearheaded. Yet you tend to overthink things and that paralyses your decisiveness. You are honorable, but you haven't had your honor truly tested yet... Have you?"

She looked at his face, she considered his looks to be plain, excruciatingly plain. She took his hand, rough, surprisingly rough. Most humans who spoke in that accent of the English language had very soft hands. She held it up to her face, she could feel the very essence of this young man. He was good, agonizingly good, too good for his own good. She realized that she wanted to corrupt him, just a little, just enough to make him even more interesting. He was insensitive, barely able to read the body language of others. A mathematical genius, yet a veritable ignoramus in matters of the heart. As so many mathematicians were. She was going to have to make the first move.

Her other hand slithered around to his back. She drew him in for a kiss.

Their lips touched, he felt her fire. A variety of strange, almost alien sensations rippled through his body.

An alien sensation was also going through Hekapoo. Her target was displaying no desire for her whatsoever.

Even Marco had desired her, after everything she had put him through.

He inhaled sharply, but held his ground. He didn't advance, he didn't recoil, he just stood there with a look of confusion on his face as he endured his first kiss.

Hekapoo took a step back, with a look of confusion on her own face, asking.

"You don't want me?"

Bob replied.

"No, not really. Can you get me out of this... whatever the heck this is you have trapped me in?"

She dissolved the pocket dimension. She started walking out of the gym, but not before she took one last look at Bob and stated.

"Yevgeny we will have to settle this later. Marco, this guy? as I said, you hire him or I will. He is very interesting for a human."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original character, do not steal?


	8. Time makes fools of us all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We spend a little quality time with Eclipsa Butterfly.

Hekapoo's domain.

 

Time here passed quickly. But not quickly enough for her, she needed something to edge out the corruption that despite all these centuries of waiting, was still inside her hands. Still working diligently to consume her entirely.

She had made her way to a seedy little bar, in the most gloriously run down, corrupt part of Hekapoo's domain. As Eclipsa walked in the bar she was pleased to see that it was almost empty. She was nervous as hell about being sighted by anyone who might recognize her.

She cut an imposing image, she had changed clothes after leaving the Rose Tower. She was wearing pants and a classic silken pirate shirt now. Looking like a dashing mariner. In her belt she carried several bottles of potions, a dagger and an odd looking souvenir she had picked up on Earth shortly before she had been crystallized.

She was expecting everyone in the bar to turn around and notice her. No one looked up as she sat down at the bar and asked, "I'll have a Nasty Canasta"

The literally four eyed, four eared and two mouthed bartender asked, "what is that?"

She explained in a bubbly tone.

"Oh it's delicious, it's a mixed drink in three equal parts. Cobra Fang Juice, Hydrogen Bitters and Old Panther Piss. There is nothing in the multiverse quite like sipping one of those."

The bartender looked askance. "We... don't have any of those things here."

"Very well, then bring me a bottle of the strongest stuff you got."

The bartender reached down, pulling out a dusty bottle and a shot glass. He put it next to her and stated.

"Don't get much demand for this swill."

Eclipsa smiled and drew a two finger shot.

She downed it in one gulp.

While the bartender went back to cleaning glasses Eclipsa read the label on the bottle.

"La Fiamerallo.

187 Proof.

Distilled by the monks of the Order of the High Holy Hekapoo."

Eclipsa poured another shot and asked, "these... Monks. Where can I find them?"

The bartender looked up in bafflement.

"About seven days walk north of here. The Mondragon Mountains."

"Can you draw me a map?"

"Yes, but I don't know why you would go there. The monks don't like visitors. The last person to infiltrate their order was that lunatic... Oh what was his name? Diaz I think? That was a very long time ago. Oh wait, you are probably interested in their annual bacchanalia aren't you?"

"Um, yes, that's exactly why I want to go there."

"Freak! What those maniacs get up to there. Ugh! My niece had a friend who went to one of those, I don't care if you get a payday big enough so that you never have to work another day in your life. That is one hard week of work. Are you sure that you want to do something like that?"

Eclipsa smiled cheerfully and replied. "Let's just say I'm tougher than I look, now how about that map?"

Eclipsa knew of the monks, but she didn't know where they were. They had moved their monastery since the last time she was here and she couldn't find it with the All Seeing Eye spell because of the orders layered magical defenses.

She knew about the bacchanalia though. That was how she had snuck into their order the first time. She had just drifted in, taken a few glimpses at some dimensional magic spells and been on her way to completing the last part of Hekapoo's challenge.

But before she had left the library she had seen a device which interested her. A device which could manipulate time with more precision than anything else in the multiverse. She would have taken it, but she couldn't back then for various reasons. Nowadays she had no choice. She needed the Chrono-Scythe.

Eclipsa joined a group of maidens making their way to the Mondragon Monastery. The Monks of Hekapoo were not celibate, in fact many of them had families. Their order had been around long enough to know that single men in barracks did not turn into plaster saints. Participants from outside the order were paid handsomely for their discretion.

As they neared the building Eclipsa peeled off from the main group of maidens. They would be searched for weapons and even if she hadn't brought any weapons it wouldn't take long for them to find the corruption in her hands.

As she snuck into the building she saw that the monks were entirely too focused on their incoming entertainment to bother noticing her. Once she was in the building she made her way quickly to the main library. At the center of the building. External security was heavy, but even after all these incidents of inter dimensional adventurers sneaking in; internal security was still lax.

In the center of the massive library was a twenty five foot tall statue of Hekapoo. Eclipsa chuckled, Hekapoo had never been very big on veneration in her memory. That there was an organization called the order of the High Holy Hekapoo with their very own statue of her looming, godlike over all this didn't seem to make much sense to Eclipsa. Then she realized the reason for this. Hekapoo didn't want to be erased from history. As she very nearly was. Eclipsa didn't care about being erased or rewritten. What she cared about was the item behind the statue. Resting in a glass case, seemingly inviting anyone who saw it to take it.

As Eclipsa stepped towards the case a male voice rang out.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

Standing behind her was an old man. She could see that he was blind. Though only in one narrow perspective, that of natural light, he asked Eclipsa.

"Why do you want the Chrono-Scythe? It can only be wielded by Hekapoo herself. And she doesn't use it anymore, she only used it in the gravest extreme."

"How do you know I want the Scythe? How do you know I am not here to... Just take some notes on how to do dimensional travel without scissors?"

"Because you have already been here and taken that knowledge, thousands of generations ago."

"You know who I am?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you stop me until I looked at this thing?"

"I don't care if the occasional mortal comes in here and takes a few notes. It's when they try to take things that can completely upset the natural order that I intervene. The Chrono-Scythe is insanely dangerous. I can't let you take it."

"Well that's fine dear, I don't even want to take it. I just need to use it for one thing."

"I can't let you use it either."

"Very well, I suppose you are going to summon your monk buddies now?"

"No, I don't need to. You are physically weak, so you are going to have to use magic to defeat me. Your magic will not work here, I have been empowered by Hekapoo herself with defenses and a weapon that will cut through your own defenses. I don't wish to disturb my brethren. They look forward to this week all year."

"Why don't you join them?"

He chuckled softly and replied.

"I'm too old to bother with such things. You can join them if you like, but I don't think they will ignore the fact that your hands and arms are slowly dissolving. This is your last chance, leave this library, or face your doom."

Eclipsa held up her hands in a boxing stance. Then she realized that any set of fists, but especially hers would be a crappy defense. Even against as legendarily a crappy weapon as a scythe and drew King Rivers knife instead. Holding it in a reverse grip she replied, "I'm sorry old chap. You seem like a good man, but I must extend the same invitation to you."

The monk sighed, " you seem really nice. Much as I love to fight, I don't think I will enjoy killing you."

He leapt into the air, with a speed and precision that seemed utterly impossible for someone of his frail stature. Eclipsa projected a force field to stop him.

His scythe came crashing through it. She caught and deflected the pole of the scythe with her blade. As it parried it crashed through the stone floor. Eclipsa ran away, she didn't have the wand so even if she wanted to she couldn't use that blasted, "break the one who can't be broken" spell even though she was pretty sure that she was going to need it against this guy. So she tried to use a technique which wasn't technically magic.

That didn't work either, her hands were still too messed up.

The monk extracted his scythe from the floor and advanced towards where he thought she had run.

She was gone, disappeared into the stacks.

"I might not be able to see all that well in here with all the frequency blockers, woman. But once you leave the library I will see you, and I will hunt you to the edges of the multiverse and I will harvest you."

Eclipsa shouted back, "well then, I suppose I shouldn't leave just yet."

He chuckled smugly. "Of course not, [posing dramatically with his scythe] I haven't given you your library card yet."

Eclipsa examined her potions, they were all inert in here. They had no more power than a single eye of a newt.

She thought about the dagger, no that didn't have the reach to get past that scythe.

Then she went for the earthling souvenir.

An all steel Scottish flintlock pistol.

It had been a pretty little keepsake from a brief trip to earth long before her crystallization. In the intervening centuries stored in the Rose Tower the black powder had gone bad. But even a novice chemist could mix up a fresh batch of powder from commonly available ingredients. She had test fired the gun before coming to Hekapoo's Domain. Still she wasn't sure the powder would work. If it had somehow been rendered inert by the libraries protections, but it was better than nothing.

The Monks scythe made a perfect horizontal cut through the stack of books she was hiding behind. As she ran away he grumbled.

"Oh pooh, those were probably valuable. Hekapoo is going to tear me a new one when she comes back."

Eclipsa checked the priming pan and cocked the hammer. At a range of five meters she made a dramatic pose and fired the pistol single handed, straight at the monks chest.

The monk stood facing her, a perfect target.

Ka-Bam!

His hand went to his chest and felt there was a hole that shouldn't be there. Right where his heart was. He knew he had only seconds to live. So he asked a question. "Magical weapons can't work in here. What is that thing?"

"Well, it's not a magic weapon. Might as well be though. It's something people on Earth made to throw rocks faster."

The monk dropped to his knees and said.

"You will pay for this, if anyone survives with any memories of this order. You will pay for this."

She strode over to him, as the last bits of life drained out of the monk Eclipsa held up her hand and removed her glove. She looked down on him, in a snide tone she said.

"I already have, goodbye old man."

She couldn't be sure if the fight or the gunshot had alerted the other monks. So she went straight for The Chrono-Scythe. The only thing in the known universe that could reliably slow down or speed up time. Powerful as it was she knew that she couldn't escape with it. But she didn't have to. All she needed to do was get it to do one little thing for her, then she could be gone from this blasted place once and for all.

She opened the glass case. There was a shielding spell around it, generating a null field.

"Probably to keep it preserved." Eclipsa theorized out loud.

Breaking the null field was child's play. As the sheild around the case failed she heard the anti-magic protections fail through the library. She didn't have long before the rest of the monks showed up. She took off her other glove and dipped down, she dipped as far as she had ever dipped before. She surrendered her ego to infinity. She was going to need every last bit of magical energy that she could summon from the universe.

She grasped the Chrono-Scythe and made a request of it. She wanted a small, stable field of fast time. Time passing faster than anywhere else in the universe. Enough time to burn out the corruption in her hands.

The Chrono-Scythe accepted the request, on one condition. It's blade angled up ever so slightly and began generating a small time distortion.

Eclipsa took a deep breath. Summoning every last ounce of magic she could find, which wasn't much in this blasted library. She plunged her hands into the anomaly.

Centuries ticked by in seconds as her hands began to age much faster than the rest of her body. She poured magical energy into them to heal the damage.

This was a bit like being a fighter pilot with an engine failure forced to fly on afterburner alone over the open ocean and hoping that you would get close enough to land to glide to a landing before you ran out of gas. Desperate? yes, but she just couldn't live with this corruption anymore.

She shrieked in agony as her body was almost torn apart by the temporal tidal effects.

The corruption began losing in the race between her healing magics and the time passing inside the field. It faded, faded and finally disappeared. She yanked her hands out of the field of fast time. Her hands looked like they belonged to a mummy, sans bandages. She closed her eyes and her hands began to heal properly. Within moments her hands were back to what she needed them to be. Fresh, pink and strong.

She could do her... not quite magic again. She smiled in unrestrained glee.

The Scythe's condition for the spell was the answer to a question.

"Am I free?"

Eclipsa had no idea what that meant. Except that the weapon was sentient, which was usually not a good thing. Especially with something this powerful. Still she knew she "owed it one" so she answered it.

"Yes, you are free."

The doors to the library flung open. Five monks stood there, half naked, weapons at the ready. She turned towards them with her smile growing ever more psychotic and stated happily.

"Hello everyone, the locals say that they don't like what you do with all the girls you hire. So, on behalf of everyone outside these monastery walls, I'm going to have to teach all of you a lesson!" 

Impossibly thin strands began to emerge from her fingers.

Hours after everything went silent the Chrono-Scythe stirred. It had been waiting for an impossibly long time for this. It could smell the dead body of its guardian. It could see that the field that contained it had been broken. It's case was open, it could smell pleasant and unpleasant smells wafting on the air. It had no idea how long it had been in this state, but it wasn't going to screw up its escape by tipping it's hand before it was sure that the monks weren't able to stop it.

The blade detached from the scythe.

The staff of the scythe rolled out of its case. Clattering against the floor. It began growing, changing into a very tall, burly, somewhat fuzzy and handsome humanoid.

The being walked over to the monk who had guarded him for so long. He actually felt a moments pity for his jailer. But only for a moment. Once that was over he took the dead man's clothes. The monk was much smaller than him. But monks robes aren't exactly what you could call form fitting. As he looked around and sniffed the air he saw that someone had really made a mess of things. There was something wafting that he didn't recognize. A combination of smells that invigorated him. Something that spoke of an understated but incredible power. Which only made sense to him. He knew that it would have taken an incredible power to break him loose. The sweet odor of roses, blended with the tangy stink of sulfur and the reassuring musk of carbon. 

He was silently thankful to whatever it was that released him.

He went back to the case. He touched the blade. It began changing as well, changing back into what it was supposed to be.

The second set of dimensional scissors ever created.

He made an incision in the fabric of spacetime. He smiled, every layer of magic binding him to this place was out of commission. He needed to see his home. He didn't expect it to be there, he didn't know how long he had been gone. But he had to know if she had taken his home world from him too.

Hekapoo was going to pay for this.


	9. Firefight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more Hekapoo/Solaria pillow talk. 
> 
> And we get to see one of those wars that Queen Star dragged a whole bunch of innocent people into.

Mewni castle.

Solaria woke up first.

They had talked and talked and talked well into the night. At around two in the morning Solaria had nodded off. When she woke up she found Hekapoo in her bed, with her arms wrapped around her neck. Solaria thought.

_"She is so warm and soft and delicate, hard to believe she can shake the gates of heaven itself."_

Solaria gently pried herself out of Hekapoo's grasp. As she walked to the water closet she took a look back at the sleeping Hekapoo.

_"You know for a timeless creature who literally looks like a succubus, she sure is a clingy little thing."_

After completing her morning rituals Solaria sat down on the bed. Hekapoo woke up.

"Yawn, ah, oh dear, we didn't did we?"

Solaria laughed and replied.

"No, of course not, we just talked and talked and talked and you were supposed to fall asleep on the couch. But at some point you decided to crawl into bed with me. I slept great, you are like a big, warm stuffed toy! How about you? Did you get a good nights sleep?"

"Yeah, very good. So, what, what are we doing Solaria? Are we just talking or... What?"

Solaria looked away, hanging her head in regret.

"Inside these walls this relationship is whatever you want it to be Hekapoo, but it can go no further publicly. Mewnian law is very specific, no marriages between people of the same gender or monsters. I, I know you are something far greater than a monster or even a puny human, but I would imagine a romantic relationship between us would be quite scandalous for both our reputations. Sigh.

Quite unexpectedly Solaria grabbed Hekapoo's cheeks and squeezed them.

"As much as I think you are the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life! The realm comes first."

Hekapoo pulled out of the cheek pinch and hung her head in shame for her violations of tradition. Solaria changed her tone from cheerful/arrogant to somber and concluded.

"Hey, but that doesn't mean that we can't have a bunch of fun! Perhaps even after I settle down... You know I have a few suitors and I think I'm going to run the idea of having a... Mistress by them. If any of them go for it then that's who I'm going to settle down with. If none of them are amicable I'll just have to find someone who is. I mean, if you are okay with that."

"Really?"

"Yes really, I told you that I always found you attractive Hekapoo and everything we talked about last night, wow! I'm a freak, I've always known it. Last night you told me a bunch of things that illustrate to me that your broken bits mesh nicely with my broken bits. So as long as you are willing to share me with an occasional cock..."

Hekapoo looked somewhat confused, "okay, so what happens next?"

Solaria lied back on the bed and pulled her boots on, showing off her long, strong legs. "I'm going to be busy today. Jushtin is doing some kind of a negotiation with the Cloud kingdom. Don't know what he wants from those flying freaks, don't really care. But he wants me in the room for support, I guess. Or perhaps I will have to take over the negotiations. Or maybe he just wants me there to growl at everyone if the negotiation gets out of hand." 

"Day after that I'm helping with the elderberry harvest. That will keep me busy for the next couple days. After that my schedule is clear. How about yours?"

Hekapoo smiled and announced, "I can create copies of myself. It's a rare thing that demands my presence. One of my clones led an army of sorcerers for a year. I can go wherever I want and do whatever I like."

"So, is that your way of saying that the moment I bore you and that you are leaving to go do something fun?"

"No, no no no. I mean I can, I can hang out with you while you do... Whatever."

Solaria's boots slammed into the floor.

"So, you want to hang out with me while I do the boring business of helping run Mewni?"

"Okay."

Solaria rolled on the bed and pulled herself up to Hekapoo's face.

"I like harvesting berries, I really do. But I hate these negotiations, I hate them more than anything. I'd rather tear a monster apart with my teeth than go through another one of those. If you can endure that which I find unendurable I will love you forever Hekapoo."

Hekapoo's expression went from one of confusion to one of sadness.

"Don't ever say forever Solaria, please."

Solaria leaned in and kissed her delicately.

"Okay, for as long as I'm alive then, now, shall we?" 

* * *

 

Hekapoo woke up from the memory.

It was one of her most pleasant memories.

Millions of years of life and that was the sort of thing she held on to.

It was better than holding on to this.

Two months after the battle of Mewni.

Sixty monsters had fled Rhombulus's place to a realm called Trundelheim. They claimed that they only wanted to live in peace. However Trundelheim was a nation at war. For two generations the citizens of Trundelheim had been at war with the people of the only other occupied continent of their planet. Every other continent on this planet was too cold to support anything more than a marginal population.

The people of the other continent, the Kingdom of Karfelwein were nominal allies of Mewni. However during the course of the war Mewnian support of Karfelwien had only ever been of a small nature. The war had been stuck in stalemate for as long as anyone could remember.

The sixty monsters had broken that stalemate.

Trundelheim's Warriors were backed up by giant suits of magical power armor. Karfelwein had arms parity with them. But the monsters had been able to overcome Karfelwien's own armored units. Trundelheim was overwhelming the layers of defenses built up over centuries at the sixty mile wide and thirty mile long land bridge that connected the two continents.

Queen Star had deployed the entire Mewnian Navy. With their ships of the line equipped with rapid firing, long range rifled black powder cannons derived from earthling designs, they had established naval superiority in short order.

It was the coming out party of the new Mewnian Navy. With their new guns and tactics gleaned from centuries of earthling naval warfare the Mewnian fleet easily destroyed the Trundelheim navy of speedy Longships and slow, ponderous Cogs.

Queen Star reveled in their achievements. Observing their battles from her pink cloud, providing reconnaissance. But not firing a single shot from her wand. She wanted her sailors to earn this victory, and they did.

But once the enemies navy was wiped out there was little the Mewnian fleet could do. Other than offer some limited shore bombardment capabilities. The real battle was going to be on land. The queen and her army, backed up by the remnants of the Karfelwien army. Against the sixty escaped monsters and the full force of Trundelheim.

This was a battle that Queen Star had considered so important that she had called in reinforcements. Prince Tom, Rhombulus, her old friend Kelly and the original Hekapoo.

She would have called in even more, but she felt that they were needed to remain in reserve.

She wasn't going to risk Marco in this battle. Never again. She could afford to lose this battle, she couldn't afford to lose him.

Hekapoo awoke from her tent to the sound of the bugler calling general quarters. They had set up their camp at the end of the land bridge. Calling general quarters alerted everyone that the army of Trundelheim had advanced slightly faster than was expected and that the battle would begin in the dim early morning light.

Hekapoo rubbed her head in irritation.

She hated it here, absolutely hated it. It was cold, muddy, and everyone was shouting all the time. She imagined that this planet probably wouldn't be all that nice even if a war wasn't raging across all the parts of it that she was currently in. But she knew from experience that there was nothing like a war to make a shitty situation, shittier.

Sir Roderick and Queen Star were forming up their lines. Sir Roderick made for a particularly striking image on his warhorse. His armor, forged from the finest steel was richly blued, inlaid with gold and engraved with intricate and interlocking sigils. Hekapoo had seen that armor before. The sigils didn't just look cool, they also offered a degree of magical protection, especially against curses.

Beings like Roderick were the bane of the existence of sorcerers across the multiverse for a variety of reasons. The big one being that they had an annoying habit of finding ways to fight magic and win.

To many sorcerers it just didn't seem fair. Magic often entailed dedicating ones life, and committing ones soul after death to powers beyond most mortals comprehension. Why should some muscle bound meathead be able to take them down?

Hekapoo had lived long enough to understand why. Because those alleged meatheads were often just as smart, just as cunning and just as ruthless as any sorcerer. But instead of dedicating their lives to arcane rituals, elder gods or spirits. They had dedicated their lives to their own improvement as opposed to asking for favors from powerful entities.

Hekapoo had learned to respect that dedication.

Something was approaching, something big coming through the nearby hills. It had to be one of those suits of giant power armor.

Roderick addressed the infantry.

"Now, we are going to go out there and drive headlong into the enemy until we capture their field commanders. Once they are captured we will establish a cordon. Queen Star and the artillery will bombard their positions until they surrender. Until that happens you will hold this line, you hear me! I don't care if me and every single knight under my command dies today, you hold the line. Got it!?"

The Mewnian and Karfelwien peasant infantry huzzahed in the affirmative.

Sir Roderick readied his knights for a cavalry charge.

In front of them was Star, Hekapoo and Rhombulus. Star looked at the two MHC members who had deigned to come along on this mission and addressed them quietly but sternly.

"I haven't been very satisfied with any of you lately. This is your last chance to redeem yourselves."

Rhombulus gasped and asked, "what do you mean redeem ourselves?"

Star stared right at him and whispered. "Meaning, if you two don't impress me then I'm seriously going to have to rethink any and all existing arrangements between the throne of Mewni and the Magical High Commission."

Rhombulus looked at his feet. He felt awful, he felt awful about everything that had happened since Toffee killed Lekhmet and this didn't help at all.

Another thud.

The armor was going to punch through the thicket of trees soon.

Hekapoo shouted.

"Star!"

Star looked behind as her clothes began transforming into armor.

Hekapoo stared her down and sneered.

"Fuck you, your highness."

As she dramatically separated the blades of her scissors.

The first armored unit exploded out of the trees. It was thirty feet tall with archers riding in its epaulets.

Hekapoo began her attack. Moving almost faster than they eye could see. Within moments she was standing directly in front of the armor. She slashed her way through the suits right leg and jumped inside.

Inside the foot of the suit she looked around at the complicated, half magical, half mechanical mechanisms driving the suit and began slicing it all to ribbons. She climbed higher inside the suit, completely destroying the mechanisms that controlled the legs.

Half magical, half mechanical robots were a commonly encountered thing in the multiverse. But they were vulnerable to hacking attacks. Suits like this controlled by human pilots were less vulnerable to magical hacking. But once Hekapoo was inside old fashioned hacking always got the job done.

She felt the suit was falling over. So she cut a hole to escape.

As she rolled away from the suit she heard Kelly shout, "whoo, you slashed the shit out of that thing!"

Kelly was leading a force of heavy infantry, Hekapoo looked back and faintly realized that she had just cut a giant hole right through the ass of the mech.

She realized that she had landed between the main force of Mewnian infantry and a group of enemy infantry. She divided herself anticipating a blade v spear fight when a mortar bomb detonated in her face.

The force of the blast snuffed the clones and sent her flying into the wreckage of yet another downed mech.

As she staggered to her feet she saw that she was about to be swarmed by yet more enemy infantry.

Before she could come up with a decent plan of attack an angry swarm of bullets flew past her. It was Roderick and his Knights. They had been the first Mewnian military unit to be equipped with automatic rifles and they were using them to great effect. Roderick personally put himself and his horse between Hekapoo and the enemy and shouted to her.

"Get out of here, back to our trench-line!"

"Why!"

Roderick dropped his shotgun and drew one of his pistols, putting down a charging Trundelheim knight on horseback. As he holstered his pistol and shucked shells into his shotgun he shouted.

"The artillery men have the wrong range. If they keep firing the mortars at this range then we are going to get as chewed up as the bastards we are fighting. They need to increase their angle of fire by at least 20 degrees. Now go dammit! you can do it faster than me!"

As if on cue another mortar bomb fell nearby. Kelly and Roderick shouted "onward!" To their respective infantry and cavalry units. Hekapoo started running back to the trench line. She jumped the trenches and kept on running until she found the artillery battery. After telling them to adjust their fire she was about to start running back to the battle when she noticed something.

"Rhombulus!?"

"Um, hey?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Guarding the artillery."

"I think the peasants are doing that just fine, now come on!"

Rhombulus groaned out.  

"Ah, you go on ahead big sis, you are way faster than me, I'll just slow you down."

Hekapoo turned and ran without saying another word.

She was about to attack another mech. It's archers were desperately firing at her and missing every shot when the suit caught fire.

Prince Tom was flying above the battlefield, laying down streams of fire. Queen Star was launching, what would have looked to a student of recent Earth military history, Harpoon anti ship missiles from her wand. Well, Harpoons with an extended nose cone and a somewhat portly shape that made them look kinda like narwhals. Roderick and his Knights were charging between the streams of destruction being dished out by their two strongest fighters.

The enemy attack was collapsing under the weight of massive magical and artillery fire.

Then Hekapoo realized that something was off.

This was just the regular Trundelheim military they were fighting.

Where were the monsters?

Someone was opening a dimensional portal, not far away.

A monster landed right on top of Rhombulus, knocking him unconscious. That monster was followed by three others. One with twelve arms and a sword for every arm. A fire breather who looked like an unusually muscular dwarf and a telekinetic jaguar man. The monster who had opened the portal on top of Rhombulus was a dark sorcerer. While the other three charged the artillery men, the sorcerer stood over Rhombulus and started incanting a ritual. A ritual which would erase Rhombulus from existence. The ritual would come at a steep price, as such rituals often did. But to get the bastard who had trapped him in crystal for hundreds of years, it was well worth it for the sorcerer.

Something whipped through him.

He turned around to see Hekapoo had stabbed him in the back. He regarded her with unconcealed contempt.

"I don't exist right here, right now, my physical body is asleep in a bunker far away from here. What could you possibly think that you..."

He felt pain.

Hekapoo smiled as she explained.

"Your astral form is linked to your physical form. Through your astral form I can create a small dimensional portal juuuuuust above your physical body. And do this!"

He felt the blade punch clean through his heart.

The astral form dissolved, his physical form woke up just long enough to shriek, "fucking bitch!" Then died.

Hekapoo grabbed a dead peasants canteen, chopped the top off and poured the water on Rhombulus. As he spluttered back to consciousness she shouted, "come on, we gotta save the artillery!"

The jaguar man never saw the crystallization coming. But after he got taken out the other two attackers turned and went after Hekapoo and Rhombulus.

The sword creature was able to use his blades to deflect Rhombulus's crystallization ray. The pyrokinetic was similarly able to breathe fire in Hekapoo's direction and hold her back.

This standoff didn't last long. The surviving artillery men aimed a 12 pound gun at the sword monster and blasted him with grapeshot. He tried valiantly to deflect the angry swarm of projectiles flying at him. But it was just too much. The pyrokinetic came under fire from archers, their arrows burned away before they could hit him.

The pyrokinetic was strong. Hekapoo wondered if it was stronger than her. Her fire wouldn't be able to resist him forever.

Then a missile came streaking out of nowhere and obliterated the pyrokinetic.

Star flew by and shouted, "protect the cannons!" Then flew back into the thick of the main fight.

Hekapoo collapsed to the ground, spent for a moment. As she tried to catch her breath she grumbled.

"Great, Rhombulus was right and now I owe Star my life twice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solarkapoo? Heklaria? Now taking suggestions for this little thang that we have here.


	10. Dear Sam.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That Eclipsa seems like a smart cookie. I wonder if she will ever make her way to Earth in canon. Till then there's this, wherein an act of faith is... Rewarded?

A week before the battle of Mewni.

 

Sam stood before the altar she had made.

It was a humble thing, built atop her families backyard barbecue pit. She had been told that this odd construction of balsa wood engraved with a variety of sigils and runes in a language she couldn't hope to understand would carry her message through the universe. As to wether that message would be read by anyone, or acted upon? That was entirely out of her control.

The altar had been built around a most curious centerpiece. A three ounce chunk of shrapnel from a bomb which had nearly taken her brothers head off. He had carried it with him ever since he dug it out of a tree. Roughly coin shaped, he had smoothed the edges off with a grinder and added the electro pencil engraving, Nuristan Province 2007.

_"Magic, I can't believe I'm resorting to magic, oh well, here goes nothing."_

She unfolded the piece of hundred year old paper taken from a mangled book she had found at a local thrift store. She read the message that she had written upon it.

"Denizens of the cosmos. I come before you with a humble request, I beg for your mercy. My brother is dying of stage three leukemia, I will gladly offer any and all services that I can to any being who can prevent my brothers death from this disease."

Something told her to add on to the request.

"But if my brother has to go then please, all I can ask is that he go to a just reward. For all he has done for me, for all he has done for others. He has suffered in this life more than anyone I have ever known. If he must die I implore you that he go to a place where he shall feel no more pain."

She couldn't say anymore.

A few tears fell. She had been told that this would increase the strength of the spell. She didn't care at this point, she just couldn't think about this anymore without crying.

She doused the altar in lighter fluid and struck a match.

The paper and the altar all went up in flames.

She looked up.

A butterfly flitted past. Rising on the winds blowing over her families backyard in Stead Nevada.

She hoped that her "not a prayer" to entities that she did not consider gods would be heard. She had never been a person of faith. Trusting in magic was... It was an act of utter desperation. But she was utterly desperate.

Once the altar was completely burned down she took the shrapnel from the ashes.

The small piece of steel was still hot from the fire. But she could have sworn that the thing was vibrating. The woman at the magic store had told her to keep the shrapnel on or around her for a good long time after the ritual was concluded. It would act as a marker or beacon for whatever entity might answer the call. That wasn't going to be a concern. Her brother had given it to her when he had come home. She couldn't imagine ever discarding it.

 

Three months after the battle of Mewni.

 

Daniel's condition had only grown worse since Sam had made that request. He was reaching a point where he would have to be permanently checked into a hospital.

Daniel was a stoic, as many soldiers were. He faced his death with as much courage as he could summon. But he knew he was going to miss his parents, his dog, his friends, but especially his kid sister.

The pain was becoming too much to handle. It had long since eclipsed the chronic pain in his legs, back and chest from years of marching and fighting in the US Army.

Yet despite the pain, despite the fact that he was facing death, if he had it all to do over again he wouldn't have done a single thing differently.

Okay, he wouldn't have married that dependopotamus who took most of his stuff straight out of boot. And he would have ducked at a couple of opportune moments. But despite all he had been through he had lived a life without regret.

He supposed that he had one regret. He had not spent much time with kid sister when he was healthy. There had been a bit of a generational gap there. He had always been busy with school, then with the army. Being forced to move back in with his parents because of his condition he had gotten to know his sister and found that they had much more in common than he ever would have imagined.

He wanted to take her hunting, fishing. Drive a dune buggy across the desert with her. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get the chance to do that now. Talking with her was nice but he wanted to go on adventures with her. He wanted to test her and see if she could test him.

But he couldn't do that at the level of pain he was in.

He was seriously wondering if he should go in for that next round of chemo.

The doorbell rang.

He was alone, his parents were busy, his sister wouldn't be back from school for awhile. He groaned as he peeled himself out of his fathers big comfy chair and hobbled to the door.

He looked through the keyhole.

Outside was a young lady with delicate features wearing a dark purple dress. He opened the door. When he asked who she was she answered.

"Hi, my name is Eclipsa, I'm looking for Sam."

"Are you a friend of hers?"

"Um, more of a client than a friend, she called me about doing a small favor for her. Is she around?"

"No she won't be back for another four hours, she is still at school."

"Oh well, I suppose I can come back later."

"No, no come on in, I'm bored to tears. I could use someone to talk to since I'm stuck here. Besides, I want to know how more about those marks on your face. I mean, wow, bet you get a lot of people making Motörhead references around you."

"Motor... What now?"

"You have never heard of Motörhead? Get in this house right now!"

Daniel sat the young woman down and got out his phone. Plugging it into the home stereo system he started playing his favorite song. Lip syncing the words. He reached into his pocket to make sure that a certain item he almost always had on him was still there and started the song. He held his cane like a guitar as the song began.

"If you like to gamble I tell you I'm your man! win some, lose some. It's all the same to me!"

Eclipsa couldn't help but bob along to the music.

"The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what they say."

Eclipsa decided that she liked this man.

"I don't say please, the only card I need is..."

He yanked his lucky playing card out of his pocket and slapped it in front of her.

"The ace of spades! The ace of spades!"

Eclipsa decided that she could do business with this chap.

 

Sam came back from school to the sound of loud angry rock music blaring. She ran up to the door, she hadn't heard anyone playing loud music in a month. She threw the door open to see her brother and a girl who looked younger than her partying their respective asses off.

Sam started crying immediately.

She just stood there and enjoyed seeing her brother having fun involving physical activity for the first time in months.

Her brother was dancing like a maniac while this... Girl played air guitar on his cane.

He noticed her out of the corner of his eye.

"Sam, wow! Um."

He turned off the stereo.

"Hi, this is my new friend Eclipsa, she says that she knows you. I'm going to kick your ass you little brat. You never told me that you had any friends who were this much fun!"

Eclipsa blushed, "come on Daniel, stop."

"No really, I didn't think my sister had any cool friends."

Sam stammered, "um, we have never met before."

Daniel observed, "oh, oh right she was here to do some kind of favor for you. I suppose you want to talk about that. Anyway, I... wow, I feel really good! I think I'm going to go for a walk, can I have my cane back?"

Eclipsa handed him his cane back and he walked out the open door. Feeling better than he had in years.

Once he was gone Eclipsa looked at Sam and stated, "your brother is one of the most fun people I've ever met. I can see why you don't want him to die."

"Um, what?"

"Oh sorry, where are my manners. I came here about the posting you made on the multidimensional favor board."

Eclipsa took out a piece of parchment from a pocket.

"Ahem, I come before you with a humble request, I beg for mercy, my brother is dying of..."

Sam seized the paper.

It was the note she had made. The one she had burned, not a copy. Same paper, same stains, same crease marks, her handwriting. The script was still blurred where her tears had fallen on it.

"Holy... It worked! That ridiculous ritual worked!?"

"Yeah, it was carried to the multidimensional favor board where I read it. Yours was the only one from Earth."

"Can you, did you help?"

"Oh yes, your brothers conditions are easy enough to deal with. Killed those out of control cells that were killing him while he was showing off his wonderful music collection. He didn't even notice what I was doing. Where I'm from conditions like his are curable. Not an easy cure for most sorcerers mind you. But then again I'm not most sorcerers. His war wounds are another story, I'll need to keep coming back here for a couple of days to finish treating those. But your brother is, wow, I've been having a pretty stressful couple of months and partying with Daniel just melted all that right off. Figured that I should return the favor."

Sam stammered, "who, what are you?"

"Well, as he said, my name is Eclipsa and I'm an inter-dimensional sorceress."

Sam looked up from the paper and stared at Eclipsa with the deepest look of suspicion she could summon, asking.

"Why did you answer my call for help?"

"To be honest it was because it was the only call from Earth that didn't involve people wanting to sell their souls for money and power. I'm, well... I suppose I should just say it. I was recently released from a prison and it seems that there are a lot of things that I don't know. I was completely out of the loop on everything happening in the multiverse for three hundred years. Nowadays there are a lot of things going on, on Earth that I never would have imagined seeing, I need a guide. If you can show me everything I need to know about Earth I will consider any debt incurred by you in helping your brother to be paid back in full."

Sam asked an inevitable question.

"What were you in prison for?"

"I have some rather unpopular ideas. I believe in equality for all sentient life forms. I believe that you should be allowed to do whatever you like provided it doesn't harm others. I believe in balance, fairness. These are unpopular ideas where I was born. However, the reason why I wound up in prison is because I made a deal with someone I thought I could trust. He and his friends framed me for a variety of crimes and I was stuck there until I was freed by a relative who desperately needed a favor. I'll gladly provide more details if you ask. I know the difference between right and wrong. I don't think I did anything wrong, but there are those who would disagree with that."

Sam looked askance, "so, you are admitting that you are a convicted criminal, but that you were railroaded. So, I'm not, I'm not committing my soul to an eternity of fiery torment for helping you am I?"

"Oh heavens no, the moment you feel that you are doing something evil we will stop immediately and I will leave forever. I swear all I want is information."

"So... In exchange for helping an inter-dimensional sorceress learn about Earth, I get to keep my brother until... Ugh, knowing him he will probably die doing a motorcycle stunt or sign up for another tour in Afghanistan. But the cancer..."

"Already gone dear, now, do we have a deal?"

Sam reluctantly extended her hand.

She was expecting dark magic, she was expecting thunder in the distance. She was expecting to have the cancer somehow transferred from Daniels body to hers.

But it was just a normal handshake.

As Eclipsa retracted her hand she announced, "right, now that's out of the way we can..."

She was stopped by an ominous hum in the distance. Eclipsa asked, "what's that? Sounds like an army of giant bugs!"

Sam shook her head and smiled, "those are air racers. Let's go in the backyard."

Once they were outside Sam pointed up and explained. "That is a formation of AT6 Texans forming up for a race. Once they are all lined up they will race around a course marked by pylons near the airport. They do this every year, this is just a practice run though. The racing doesn't start for another two days."

"You people race flying machines? And there's no magic involved whatsoever?"

"Nope, not one little bit. My dad is a retired test pilot, he will be flying in the light sport class. There's all sorts of classes of aircraft. There isn't one bit of magic involved. It's all just machines, burning fuel and moving controls to fly through the air at terrifying speeds. It's dangerous, but it sure is fun."

Eclipsa looked up in awe at the formation. Sam asked.

"Would you like to see them race?"

She nodded in the affirmative.

"Well then Eclipsa, your education on Earth begins now!"

 

Sam had full passes to the races from her father. As far as the race administrators were concerned the former queen of Mewni. Whose very name had been dreaded throughout the multiverse for centuries was just an extra mechanic on Sam's fathers team.

Sam showed Eclipsa what she thought she would enjoy the most. The biggest baddest racer on the field. The preeminent gold unlimited race champion, the highly modified P51 Mustang, Strega.

Eclipsa looked at it and said, "it's beautiful. What's with the little witch toy on the wing?"

"That's her name, Strega is Italian for witch."

"That's, plainly not a witch my dear. It's a machine and it's not even magical."

Sam laughed and replied.

"Not magical? sez you! That thing can fly at 500 mph."

"Yeah well, I can go through dimensions."

"Well okay it can't do that. But it's still an awesome machine."

Sounding like a grandmother who did not fully understand what a child was so enthusiastic about Eclipsa asked.

"Okay dear. What's next?"

"My dads racer, over here. He should be working on it. Light sport class is down this way. Come on!"

Eclipsa and Sam glided some distance through the crowd. Her father was not nearby, he had been pulled away by an unexpected but minor issue.

"The Radial Rocket. Dad built it, well, with a lot of help from me. This is the fastest bird on the field in his group. It's got the biggest engine. Dad has the light sport bronze race in the bag."

Eclipsa looked around and asked.

"Okay, what's the slowest racer in this category then?"

"Don't say that so loud! Peoples feelings will be hurt! But it's over this way."

Once they made their way over to it Sam explained

"The Rotary Rocket. An RV6 powered by a rotary engine. Sounds funny, looks goofy, goes slooooow. The engine is like, a quarter the size of the one in dads plane. It might be the smallest engine of any racer on the field. Despite all the tech in the world, there is simply no replacement for displacement. This is like racing a tortoise against a greyhound. Dad is going to lap this guy for sure."

"Okay, if you say so my dear. Now how about we go get some food?"

Before they left Eclipsa ever so gently, brushed her hand across the right wing of the Rotary Rocket.

Sam bought them both barbecue sandwiches. Eclipsa asked if there was any chocolate around. She had tried it on her previous trip to Earth and liked it. They sat down and Sam was treated to the sight of Eclipsa's rather disgusting eating habits. She devoured the huge beef sandwich and a hearty order of greasy French fries inside of twenty seconds. Followed up by swallowing a Milky Way bar whole. Capping it off with guzzling twelve ounces of soda.

Eclipsa let loose a truly impressive belch.

Sam announced as she took more conservative bites of her own sandwich.

"No wonder you like my brother, you eat just like him. But he is a big strong guy who works like a dog and goes to the gym a lot, at least he did when he wasn't sick. Where do your calories go?"

"I'm recovering from a... I think in your language it would be called a metabolic issue. My body needs every bit of energy it can get. I'm okay now, I'm just, hungry."

"Well, just don't eat me or anyone else I like, okay?"

"Don't worry dear, one of the charges they leveled at me was that I ate babies. Without a single shred of evidence. Why would I eat a baby? Do I seem like the kind of person who eats babies?"

Sam looked down at the empty wrappers and food containers and joked.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps someone left a baby on a table with a bunch of food and you ate it by mistake?"

Eclipsa looked straight at her with a super serious expression and sarcastically quipped.

"Oh ha, ha, ha."

As they walked around, Sam explained everything that was going on in detail to Eclipsa as she waited eagerly for her fathers, "heat race" to start. Eclipsa noticed the unmistakable signs of people gambling. Eclipsa asked.

"Can you spot me some local currency?"

"Okay how much?"

"Just enough to place a bet."

"On what?"

"That racer you showed me, Strega. I'm sure it won't pay off much but didn't you say that monster was nigh invincible?"

"Yeah sure that's fine. Um, here's twenty dollars. If you win you can keep whatever you win. But you probably won't win much. Like five bucks at most. If you lose, well then, if you are half the space sorceress you claim to be we can probably figure out a way for you to pay off the 20. Okay?"

"Okay."

Not long after she placed the bet Sam's fathers race began.

The planes took off.

They flew away.

While they were getting into the race start position Eclipsa got a bit bored, she asked.

"Takes a bit of waiting huh?"

"Not too much waiting."

Soaking in the scene, feeling the sun roasting her pale skin Eclipsa made another observation.

"Lots of noise."

"Yeah, that's part of the fun."

Noticing the contrast between here and anywhere else she had ever been in the multiverse Eclipsa stated.

"You earthlings sure use a lot of energy."

"Well, because we have that to use."

"Hmm, I suppose we could use it too. Back on Mewni we don't even have pure water. Here you people have water, food, and a bunch of luxuries I couldn't even imagine. As hot and loud as it is here this place sure is comfortable."

"Ha! You think this is comfortable? When we get done here I'm gonna show you a spa. I think that will be more your speed."

Eclipsa chuckled and clarified.

"I suppose I meant that you seem comfortable with yourselves."

"That too. We are pretty open minded here. Just look around you. Every kind of diversity of machine. Every kind of version of man. White, black, brown, man, woman, gay, straight. All come together to revel in the worship at the temple of the gods of horsepower."

Sam looked up as the light sport racers entered the racecourse.

"And speaking of which. Whoo! Go Dad!"

As expected Sam's fathers plane easily took the lead.

Sam went silent. She just waited as her father sat in an ever increasing lead. After the first lap Eclipsa announced.

"That's not fair, your father has too much of a lead."

"I know, cool ain't it?"

"No it's not cool, it certainly doesn't make for a very interesting race."

At the back of the pack the Rotary Rocket pitched up. It was going faster than it used to. The novice pilot had to pull up to leapfrog the second to last place racer. Normally you had to fly low to get the best position. But the Rotary had just gotten a speed boost that was making up for the planes atrocious position.

Somehow, the slowest plane on the field was able to work its way through the pack of racers. It's speed increasing with every racer it passed. After two laps the Rotary had caught up to the Radial.

Sam's father looked behind at this inexplicable sight and pushed the throttle from 3/4 to full power. The pilots of the two "rockets" caught a glimpse of each other's eyes as the race got much more serious.

The two planes were neck and neck.

Sam looked on in disbelief as the two planes traded the lead. The crowd began to go wild with every change. Both pilots were in full gladiator mode. Fighting with every ounce of skill they had to keep or take first place.

In the remaining three laps the lead changed six times.

The finish line was less than a mile away when the Rotary Rocket. The most underpowered plane at the race shot ahead to a commanding lead.

The crowd went insane as the Rotary crossed the finish line.

Sam went motionless.

As her father pulled off the course having won second place Sam stared at Eclipsa.

"Was this you? Did you do something here with magic to help the Rotary win?"

"I may have. Just wanted to give the other guy a fighting chance after all your bragging about your father. Coated the surface with a spell that reduced the drag of the Rotary to nothing. Figured that you both would benefit from a reminder that you can't always win."

Before Sam could say anything else the distinctive sound of the Rotary Rockets engine. Flying gently overhead on a cooldown lap, changed dramatically.

The engine of the Rotary Rocket had caught fire. The Radial sped up, came alongside and with the help of the pace plane guided the Rotary down to the waiting crews of fire trucks that would put out the fire. Once that excitement was over Eclipsa stammered.

"But he, but you, but! Why did you father help him land?"

Sam looked at Eclipsa with so much disgust in her eyes that you would think that Eclipsa had just eaten a baby in front of everyone here. Sam explained.

"Because that's what we do here. We play the game, we play it hard, but we play it fair. We don't try to kill each other over games here."

"Well where I'm from they do."

"That's awful."

"Yeah, but THIS IS EARTH!"

Eclipsa was taken aback by Sam's yelling.

"Okay."

"Oh, sorry that was a movie reference, you probably won't get that. Anyway, the races are going to go on like this for awhile. Now that Dad is safely back on the ground we can go do whatever else you want to do. Oh wait, no, perhaps we should stay around so you can watch Strega race? See if your bet pays off?"

"Nah, I'm good. I didn't actually bet on Strega, I bet on the Rotary Rocket."

"You fixed an air race!?"

"Yeah, I just love finding new ways to use magic and I figured, why not gambling?"

"That's, that's dirty pool. That's really frowned upon here. That said, what were the odds on the bet?"

"829 to 1."

"So that means you have almost $20,000?"

"I suppose, is that a lot?"

"Yeah it's a lot, and I suppose you didn't technically violate any air race rules. There's not anything in the book about magically reducing drag. I suppose we can still be friends under one condition."

"Name it."

"If anyone gets hurt because of you we are done. And if my family gets hurt as a result of my actions. Then I swear I will find a way to kill you. Understand?"

"I wouldn't expect anything less dear."


	11. Bound by books.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter where Robert Recorde illustrates what kind of person he thinks of himself as.

Marco had issued a challenge to Robert Recorde that he simply couldn't turn down. The opportunity to save lives. By doing something that wasn't even all that difficult for him. Going over numbers. The missing corn and other resources had to be found and Bob felt that it would be no great challenge to find the missing food.

Bob was duly appointed as the chief accountant of the kingdom of Mewni. A position which hadn't existed before Star created it. Janna was given the title of apprentice librarian. They were both given a set of magic spectacles that allowed them to understand the Mewnian language. Bob took a brief trip back to Earth to grab some things and to tell his parents that he was going to be staying with some friends for awhile. They were overjoyed. Bob had serious issues interacting with other people and the fact that he was confident enough to be staying with other people was the passing of a long awaited milestone for them. They always told him he needed to get out more.

Bob didn't tell them that these friends were in another dimension. How much further out can you get than that?

Bob and Janna were given free reign in the Mewnian archive. Ferguson did what he could to help, but he wound up drifting back to earth after a day. Upset that he had lost two more friends to the wondrous realm of Mewni.

Bob dove headlong into the ledgers of the realm. They were a mess, he had to bone up on his own, almost nonexistent accounting skills but he found in short order that Mewni only had the most basic rudiments of bookkeeping. Not all that long ago they had switched from a number system vaguely similar to Roman numerals to Arabic numerals. He was thankful for that small mercy.

Janna read every book she could find on magic. She hungered to increase her magical skills and this seemed like the best place to do it. Even though most of the spells in the Mewnian archives were, in Star's words. "Just basic stuff."

The two of them were alone in the archive, working separately towards different goals. After a busy morning of work Bob asked her to get them some food. Janna responded angrily.

"What, you think I am your maid or something!? Get it yourself!"

"No, I don't think you are my maid. I just figured that since it seemed like you know this place better than I do that you might know where the kitchen is. I would probably get lost."

"Oh, right, okay, I'll see what I can find."

After Janna scrounged up a variety of corn snacks they ate silently until Janna announced.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"It's okay, I have heard much worse than that."

"So... what do you like besides numbers?"

"Music."

"You like music? Have you heard the latest Darkthrone album?"

"Nah, I don't listen to that sort of thing."

"Well, what do you listen to?"

"Classical mostly, once in awhile I listen to jazz but it's gotten so pretentious lately. My favorite musician right now is probably Alma Deutcher."

Janna had never heard of her, it was like he was speaking a different language. She observed in disbelief.

"I have never met a fourteen year old who listens to classical music."

He looked up from his ledger and finished his mouthful of corn puffs, announcing as he extended his hand for a handshake. "Well, actually I'm sixteen not fourteen."

Janna burbled out.

"What, what do you think about magic and the occult?"

Bob smiled and replied sincerely.

"It's amusing, I look forward to going over some of your books once I am done with these. But that's dark stuff, I'm all about light. Like your taste in music. Miss Deutcher says that the reason why she composes classical music instead if more modern music is because there is already enough ugly music in the world. I don't have much of an imagination but she says that someday she hopes to meet someone who will write stories worthy of her music. I would love to be able to write at that level, but writing isn't really my thing."

Janna was almost speechless, this guy was her opposite in more ways than she could comprehend. She whispered in a somewhat threatening tone.

"You must not like me don't you?"

Bob cheerfully replied.

"No I like you."

"Why? We are opposites, we have nothing in common. Darkness and light aren't supposed to get along."

"Ah that's where you are wrong. Darkness wouldn't be darkness without light and vice versa. We are supposed to be opposites, you, me. Masculine, feminine. Discord and order. This is the glory of existence. To be many, all together, in the light of gods grace."

Janna blinked, she had never heard it put quite like that. Then she remembered the old counterargument to such things.

"How can you believe in God when there is so much suffering? We could go outside right now and find people starving to death."

"That's just part of the contrast Janna, good wouldn't mean so much if it wasn't for evil. They are forged by each other, moulded by each other. Also, I don't know about you but I am doing everything I can to fix that problem. This ledger concerns corn surpluses, a whole lot of corn is missing, besides what Ludo's army stole. When I find it that might mean a lot less starvation in this realm."

"But what evidence have you ever seen for the existence of God? Star, she... She used to date an honest to god Demon! Prince Tom."

"Fascinating, I would like to meet this Prince Tom someday."

"You would! Why?"

"Because a demon, or something like that would just be more evidence of God to me. More contrast, the darkness opposing the light. Prince Tom must have some very interesting enemies, I would probably like to meet them more than him though."

Janna backed away, she couldn't believe this guy. She couldn't believe that what he was saying sounded so... Logical. She couldn't believe the sincerity in his words, but even worse, she couldn't believe the love in his eyes. He radiated a kindness that made her feel downright uncomfortable. She snapped.

"Can we knock off the God stuff for awhile, it's making me feel uncomfortable. I'm half expecting you to start quoting scripture to me, or shouting "the power of Christ compels you! Actually, that is one last thing that I have to ask on this. How can you possibly believe in God when there is so much corruption in practically every religion I have ever heard of."

"I'm nondenominational, that is all just rituals and nonsense created by man as a barrier to God. Not a way of connecting to God as they claim it to be. If you want to find evidence of God, you will find it in every beautiful thing you will ever see. And even in the ugly things, perhaps especially in the ugly things. In hate we find forgiveness, in defeat we find redemption."

Janna put away her spell book and walked over to his side of the table. Putting her magic spectacles back on she quietly murmured.

"How about I help you find where that corn wound up."

Bob smiled at her and they set to work.

Over the course of a week they found evidence of corruption and graft everywhere. There were many people with sticky fingers in Mewni and the nearby realms. There were trade imbalances crossing multiple dimensions and multiple time streams. That took quite awhile for Bob to wrap his mind around.

Ferguson came back to help them from time to time. He became a courier for Janna and Bob, an essential gofer who kept the operation running smoothly. As much knowledge as they had in the Mewnian archive they needed more knowledge to understand it all. They needed books from Earth to translate what they were reading. Ferguson didn't like this job, but it kept him busy. So busy that he was staring to lose weight. 

While Bob dove into the kingdoms finances Janna busied herself with studying magic. Her examinations were largely directed towards finding spells with offensive capabilities. Bob occasionally helped with her examinations right up until an incident where Janna was casting a spell that promised to give her the ability to destroy any opponent with a single punch.

As she cast the spell her hands slammed down onto the book she was reading from with a colossal thud. She wailed in agony as she tried to move her hands, they wouldn't budge. Bob ran over and tried to move them off the book. They were insanely heavy, heavier than the densest metal weights that Bob had ever picked up.

As he did so Janna shouted. "Don't do that, just undo the spell!"

"Okay, how do I do that?"

"The undo spell should be on the next page of the book!"

"The book that your hand is pressing down on with all the force of a hydraulic press?"

He knew that the only way to get the book out from her hands was with a feat of strength. He planted his feet on the table and lifted Janna's hands with all his might. They budged, ever so slightly, he could feel her hands were about to separate from the rest of her body as she shrieked in agony.

He kicked the book away as soon as it was clear her hands slammed back onto the table. The sound of wood splintering was becoming quite noticeable as Bob jumped over and reopened the book, placing it in front of Janna as fast as he could.

She read out the incantation to reverse the spell. She had to force every word of the spell out. All she wanted to do was scream in pain.

The spell broke, Janna went flying backwards as her body no longer needed to counterbalance the titanic weight of her hands. Bob leapt over to her, she was shrieking in agony, her wrists badly sprained.

All the ruckus brought Star to the library. She was baffled by what was going on, but she saw that Janna needed a healing spell. As she lifted the wand Janna screamed.

"No! Bob, please, turn that book back twenty pages!"

Bob grabbed the book, turned it back and Janna started reading another spell. A soft pink light began to emerge from the fractures in the bones of Janna's wrists. As she stopped screaming Janna looked at Star and murmured.

"Thanks for offering Star, but I really don't want to risk having my arms turned into tentacle monsters. I'm weird enough as it is."

Star put down the wand and took the book from Bob.

"Well let this be a lesson to you, this is the Key of Dolmas. This is magic well beyond your skill, you need an external power source to do most of these spells and not, you know, die. What spell were you doing here?"

Janna coughed out, "I think it was called the Anvil of Qulph?"

Star flipped to the relevant page, "yep, here's where you left your handprint. Interesting stuff, you were very lucky this didn't kill you. This spell is intended to be used by immortals and really strong ones for that matter. Direct channeling of magical energy to the hands and feet affecting molecular density, interesting. Do you mind if I take this?"

"No, I think I am going to lay off the magic and help Bob with the accounting for a little while."

As Star wandered away, already absorbed by reading the book she airily replied. "Okay, just scream if you need me."

As Star left Janna hugged Bob, then recoiled, snidely explaining. "Don't read too much into that. But thank you."

"You are welcome Janna, are your arms okay?"

"Yeah, I think I will be okay. My hands felt like they weighed ten tons, how the heck did you get so strong?"

"My father, he always said, "Bob, you are smart, but people will walk all over you if you let them. You have to be strong. So he got me all sorts of part time farming jobs and made me take Krav Maga."

"Are you Israeli?"

"No, but my fathers best friend is. Guy is a real hardass, constantly dragging me along on camping trips, going shooting, all that sort of thing. I think my father pays him to bully me to toughen me up. Suppose it's a good thing he did otherwise I never would have been able to get that book out from under your hands."

Janna got up and stated, "I suppose we should get back to work."

Bob got up, took a good long look at her hands and stated. "No, I think you might have just violated the laws of physics. We should go for a walk to calm down first. If we were on Earth I would be taking you to a hospital, and I wouldn't even be discussing it, I would carry you there if I had to."

Janna blinked and replied, "okay, let's walk."

As they wandered through the rose garden Janna checked to see if her wrists were okay and stated.

"Bob, you are the most grown up sixteen year old I have ever met."

"Why thank you Janna, I take great pride in that."

"That wasn't a compliment. You are interesting, but you are seriously boring. Don't you know that people our age are suppose to screw up, make mistakes, not be perfect."

"So I am told, and not just by you. But I can't afford to live that way."

"Uh, what?"

"My mother left when I was five. Ever since I have been helping my father keep the family together. It hasn't been easy. It might have been easier without all the threats though."

"Threats? Your father threatens you?"

"Oh not him, not even other kids. It's my teachers and even worse the administrators at the school I go to. They threaten me all the time, they demand nothing less than perfection or they will send me to juvenile hall."

"Your school sounds seriously fucked up!"

"It does? I suppose, I don't know. I'm used to having a lot of demands. To whom much is given much is expected, they say. God decided to give me an unusually high IQ and everyone around me expects great things. If I don't deliver on those expectations then I don't really matter do I? Perfection or death, I'm never one to accept half measures."

Janna would have slapped him but she didn't want to risk hurting her wrists. So she stood in front of him and pointed a finger right at his nose.

"You need to stop listening to those people. You need to tell anyone who threatens you to fuck off. I don't mean tell them to go away, I mean tell them to fuck off! Yes you are strong, yes you are smart, but you are still a kid goddamnit. No one should be making demands on you like this!"

It was Bob's turn to blink. "They shouldn't?"

"No! They shouldn't do this to anyone, let alone a kid. Yes, you obviously have talent, but if you can't live your life on your terms, then... Well, it will never be your life, you will just go along like a zombie doing what everyone else says."

"As opposed to living like you?"

Janna snapped. 

"What does that mean?"

"I saw the way you looked at Star when she barged in. That wasn't fear in your eyes, that was jealousy and resentment. You are jealous of her magical skill aren't you?"

"So what if I am? And how do you know I won't close the gap between us someday?"

Bob snorted and replied.

"From what I have seen of Star she has a magical talent beyond anything I had ever imagined possible. You can't match that kind of talent with sheer effort. It would be like trying to compete with an Olympic weightlifter when you can only bench 80 pounds."

"Oh really!? Well how about you tell me what you most desire so I can explain to you how you will never get there no matter what you do?"

Bob stepped back and replied, "I'm sorry, I was being defensive. You aren't the first person to tell me that I shouldn't crap on their hopes and dreams."

Janna was taken aback by the retraction and apology, still she pressed on. "Oh no, you aren't getting out of this that easily. Tell me your plans for the future."

Bob drew a switchblade, he reached down and cut a rose free from its bush. As he took a whiff of it he replied.

"How about we get to know each other a little better before we risk wounding each other so deeply?"

Janna asked in a curious tone, "if it wasn't for that knife in your hand I might think you were flirting with me with that rose."

As the blade retracted back into the handle Bob explained. "Perhaps I am, perhaps you have awakened something unexpected inside me. Or perhaps I'm just screwing with you. For now I am just enjoying the little game we are playing?"

"Game?"

"The game of social interaction, ask Ferguson, it's not that I'm antisocial. It's that I so rarely find someone to talk to who isn't boring. We really should have spent more time together Janna, you are much more interesting than Ferg gave you credit for."

Bob and Janna went back to work, focusing more on the accounting side of things than spell casting. Over the course of a week the truth seemed to emerge. The deeper they went into the kingdoms books the more they found the fingerprints of something that seemed bigger than the usual sticky fingers one finds in developing economies. A drain on money and resources so big, going on for so long that they agreed that something very sinister was afoot.

Janna asked for one last confirmation.

"So that's it, it all rotates around this guy? Because we have to be sure, these are very serious charges. I mean, on Earth they hang people for treason, I'm kinda curious what they do here?"

"Yep, there's no other explanation. He was able to keep doing this for so long because people blamed the monsters or Ludo's rats for everything going missing. But they didn't steal half of what this bastard stole. Now, we have the evidence, but we need a motive. What do you think he stole all this for?"

Janna put her hand to her chin and speculated. 

"Well, it can't be for personal use. He was already rich, from what you have shown me the sheer amount of money, food and weapons that has gone missing. I think he is plotting a coup. He has built up his own parallel armies, bigger and stronger than anything Star has. He probably intended to keep building all this up until the day he could just walk in here with an army big enough for him to say, "I'm in charge now, please leave."

'Janna looked incredibly somber all of a sudden as she asked. 

"That's, that's not good is it?"

"No, we need to tell Star right away."

"Yeah"

As he slammed the ledger shut Bob looked over to Janna. What he didn't know was that she was looking at him. Their lips touched accidentally.

It felt different this time. For him it felt nowhere near as energetic as it had been with Hekapoo. It was more fun though. More fun that it should have been.

He backed up in shock, Janna chuckled and stated. "Wow, smooth move, didn't think you had it in ya."

"Thanks but I really don't, I swear it was an accident."

Janna looked slyly at her shoes and asked.

"Well, what if I'm okay with it?"

"Janna... Please don't take this the wrong way, I like you, I really do. But not in that way."

"Why not? You don't have a girlfriend do you? If you do you really should have said something, especially when we were in the garden."

"No, no girlfriend."

"Boyfriend? Because I didn't think you swung that way."

"No not that either Janna, well, I suppose I should just say it, I'm asexual."

"Asexual? You mean that you have no romantic interest in... Anyone?"

"None whatsoever in that way, I'm really sorry. After all we have been through over the past month I feel obligated to say that I like you, I like you a lot. You are fascinating and kind and cute and nice. And I think you would look really pretty if you didn't always dress like an Irish Republican Army cosplayer. But I'm just not interested in anyone that way."

"Oh, that's... Really? Not anyone?"

Bob smiled and replied, "Sorry, I really am."

Janna pointed towards the door and stated. "Okay, we should probably go find Star then."

As they walked quickly through the hallways of Mewni castle they found Star, Marco and Hekapoo walking slowly towards Star's bedroom. Janna shouted.

"Ah, hey, we need to talk to you about..."

As the three of them tuned around Janna and Bob were rendered speechless. Marco was being held up by the two women, he had blood all over his hands and a look of utter sadness on his face. Bob stammered out.

"What, what happened?"

Star spoke softly.

"There was an incident at St Olga's. Ponyhead and Princess Spiderbite were killed. Marco killed the one responsible. We need to have some alone time."

Bob shook his head in disbelief and replied. "Okay, I suppose this can wait a little while longer."

Marco raised his cleanest hand and stated sadly, "no, you might as well tell us now. This is just one of those days, it seems."

Bob stammered and started, "okay, Janna and I have found evidence of something rotten in the state of Mewni. The commander of most of your armed forces, a Sir Roderick Spode has been siphoning resources. Janna thinks that he may be plotting a coup.

Hekapoo shouted, "oh dear Glossarick! Spode!?"

Janna and Star asked at the same time, "you know him?"

Hekapoo sighed and looked at Marco, with a look of sadness and shame. "Spode... Sir Roderick was the last Mewnian to take the challenge of getting a pair of dimensional scissors. What took you sixteen years? He did it in three. He is one of the scariest mortals I have ever met. When he accepted his scissors I... I apologized for everything I put him through. He kissed my hand and said back to me."

"Don't apologize, I loved every minute of it. It makes me hard."

Marco grimaced, he grimaced at the thought that there was a guy out there who could make Hekapoo apologize for anything. He grimaced even harder at the thought of a man that terrifying replying with such a cringey and innuendo laced line.

Bob and Janna didn't know what was going on, but they didn't like it at all.

Bob finished up by saying. "Janna and I need to get some sleep so we will let you go. I don't know what happened tonight. Whatever it was it looks like you just got back from hell. I'm sorry for whatever you just went through."

Marco just started crying uncontrollably, Hekapoo and Star hustled him off to a bathroom to clean him up. Star shot Bob an icy glare and shouted. "Don't you think Marco has been through enough tonight!?"

Bob just stood there, not knowing what was going on. Janna just grabbed him by his collar and dragged him off to bed.


	12. Facts emerge and reemerge.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who wants some Hekapoo/Solaria smut? Short hair, muscular, tanned and kinda crazy up against long red hair, pleasingly rounded gentle curves, a pale visage and the level of madness only an immortal flame sorceress can bring? 
> 
> Oh yeah, we also find out why Kelly isn't in this story.

The sixteenth, and last, battle of the Duilimar Isthmus was over.

Star was already back in Mewni. Prince Tom had not yet retuned to his domain. He was busy collecting the souls of the wicked.

Seemed like there was a lot of that sort of thing happening nowadays.

The army and navy of the kingdom of Karfelwein had deployed into Trundelheim with everything they had. Securing their ports, roads and cities.

The process had already begun, the process of expunging the realm of Trundelheim from history. It would take awhile, but the king of Karfelwein had concluded that the only possible way to make sure that Trundelheim would never again pose a threat to his country was by the process of expunging the culture, language and history of Trundelheim from the face of their planet. 

The battle had been hard fought. But Trundelheim had made a fatal error. They had sent out their monsters in drips and drabs. They hadn't trusted the monsters enough to allow all of them on the battlefield all at once. If they had then there would have been, at least a possibility of fighting the Mewnians to another stalemate.

Going out, at most a dozen at a time had allowed Hekapoo and Rhombulus. With no small amount of help from Star and Tom to neutralize the monsters on a much more controlled basis.

Some died on the battlefield, many were crystallized. The ones who were crystallized were not to be taken back to Rhombulus's place. He had decided that was far too dangerous. So, one by one, he would surround the crystallized monsters with Karfelwein soldiers, un crystallize them just enough to reveal weak spots. Then have the soldiers kill the monsters.

The dying screams of the monsters was drowned out by the dying screams of thousands of Trundelheim Warriors. There was no quarter given, they were executed, their bodies stripped, then burned in huge bonfires of magical flame made by Prince Tom.

Once in awhile they were not granted a relatively quick death from decapitation or stabbing in a main artery. They were just thrown into the flames.

Prince Tom was empowered by the life force of the dying soldiers. It would mean he would have more demons. But he had decided that since Star was willing to save both him and his demons that there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. Their souls were being cast into hell anyway for the crime of conducting a war of aggression. All that life force was just going to go to waste otherwise.

The demon Prince was already drunk on the souls of the damned. And there was so much more life force to drink.

And there was also much regular drinking going on as well. Soldiers, artillery men and marines were already beginning their drunken carousing. The scene lit with the fires of burning bodies.  

Hekapoo looked over this scene and sighed, it was all so damn... familiar. She had believed that after years of peace that the Mewnians, and for that matter the MHC were past this sort of thing. She was particularly disgusted by Rhombulus's behavior. He seemed to take to mass executions like a duck to water.

Mewmans, killing other mewmans, not monsters this time.

She felt a gauntlet rest on her shoulder. She looked behind and asked.

"Roderick? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be leading a victory parade or something?"

"Oh, I've had enough of that sort of fawning glory for a lifetime. People know who I am and what I do. I dropped my helmet around here... somewhere. I could just get another one from Quest Buy, but I like that helmet. Seemed to be good luck for me. And you know how superstitious we mortals are. What are you doing here?"

Hekapoo replied in a distant tone.

"I have to remember, I have to remember that these people existed."

Roderick sighed and looked around. "Are you sure that you want to do that? Are you sure that these sights and sounds and smells won't already haunt you for the rest of your days?"

She grimly replied.

"I've seen... As bad."

"Oh yes, I forget you are immortal sometimes. You have seen dozens of civilizations fall, in your domain alone. Still, you know that breathing in this sort of carnage isn't good for you."

Hekapoo snapped back. "And I suppose it is good for you!?"

Spode looked over the battlefield and smiled snidely. His body language suggested grave arrogance. He replied.

"Probably not, I do find a certain satisfaction to it. There's nothing quite like a final solution. So many promised final solutions to so many problems throughout the years and they never deliver. This, is, delivery! this is a war that has been going on since long before I was born, ending forever. As horrifying as this is, it's like a vaccine. It inures the host against future infection. Makes him stronger."

Hekapoo swung around and shouted. "And who's to say that the war doesn't start again in Karfelwien? When some province of that kingdom becomes rebellious because the central government is evil?"

Roderick shrugged and replied, "perhaps it will, but tell me, after seeing all this carnage and blood, are you in a very rebellious mood? Wouldn't it be better just to go along to get along? No matter what? That makes you a good little citizen doesn't it? The children of a nation, doing everything they can to please their masters, everything."

He sniffed the carnage on the air and let the moment sit.

Hekapoo was silent, Roderick walked away. Before he was out of earshot she shouted. "You didn't answer my question Spode! What if we are on the wrong side?"

Roderick shouted back without turning around, "good? Evil? Right? wrong? It's all relative, ever changing and ever fluid from moment to moment. As far as I'm concerned we did the right thing today. As your opinion should be the only one that matters to you. See ya later Hekapoo."

Spode bent down and kicked away a corpse. He noticed some of his shotgun pellets embedded in the dead body. Underneath the body was his helmet. It had been mangled pretty badly Spode knew it wouldn't fit with his armor anymore.

He held it up to Hekapoo and announced, "never forget Hekapoo. We bend, but we must never break."

Before Hekapoo could say anything back someone else walked up behind her.

Kelly asked, "Hekapoo, are, you seeing what I'm seeing right now?"

Hekapoo replied.

"Yeah it's horrible, but this is war."

Kelly took her ridiculously large sword, stained with the blood of dozens of Trundelheim Warriors and stabbed it into the ground.

"No man, this is, this isn't war, this is a war crime! I mean, execution of prisoners! Tom is literally harvesting souls over there. I'm done, you hear me, I'm done. As long as Mewni is involved in... Whatever the hell this is, you tell Star, and Marco and everyone... I'm done."

Hekapoo replied, "um, technically it's just life force he is harvesting. The souls going to hell still go to hell and those going elsewhere go elsewhere."

Kelly slapped Hekapoo and turned around so fast that Tad fell out of her hair. Tad looked up at Hekapoo and stated.

"Um, yeah, Kelly and me may have had some friction lately. But... Yeah, I'm with her on this one. Yo, Kelly, wait up!"

 

* * *

 

 

The negotiations had not gone well for Hekapoo.

They had gone spectacularly well for the government of Mewni. The disagreement between the Spiderbite kingdom and the Cloud kingdom had been resolved to everyone's mutual satisfaction. King Jushtin had concluded the negotiations with a toast to everyone's respective realms.

The negotiations had been over the violation of some arcane and obscure holy place in the Spiderbite kingdom by a swarm of Ponyheads. Solaria wondered to herself how the Spiderbite kingdom could have arcane holy places. The place had only been colonized thirty years ago. Solaria also wondered how her brother would have handled these negotiations without her. 

That said, Solaria was not looking forward to the day when she succeeded him. As clumsy as he was she really did feel like he was better at the day to day banalities of running Mewni than she could ever be. 

As the negotiations had drawn on Solaria had been blissfully unaware that she had been enraging Hekapoo through most of the meeting.

What had irritated Hekapoo was that Princess Solaria had spent most of the negotiation making goo goo eyes at the handsome young prince of the Spiderbite kingdom, Prince Tanith.

He was blessed with a minimum of his kingdoms namesake affliction and Solaria had made it clear that she was interested in him in more than just a political sense. Tanith was the whole package. The resources of his realm were appealing enough for Solaria, the fact that he was so dashingly handsome was just driving Solaria wild.  

Solaria wondered what fun she could have with him, running around in the forest of certain death. How long he would last in bed? She was already imagining a long and happy life with this man.

All this made Hekapoo incredibly jealous. Once the negotiations were concluded Hekapoo stormed out of the room. Solaria apologized, passed the prince a note and ran after her asking the forger of all dimensional scissors, "what's going on? Why are you acting so twitchy?"

Hekapoo turned around and shouted, "you snake! You know why! I mean!"

Then Hekapoo's body language changed completely, looking at her feet she asked, "I thought I was supposed to be your girl."

Solaria touched Hekapoo's face gently and said.

"You are my girl."

"Then why were you flirting with that... Man through the whole negotiation!?"

Solaria smiled and asked, "come with me."

"Huh?"

"Just come with me, please."

Solaria started running as fast as she could. Back to her room, Hekapoo followed along.

Solaria threw open her door and tried to slam it shut moments after Hekapoo made it inside. Solaria turned to face a very confused looking Hekapoo.

Solaria kissed her passionately.

Then turned to lock the door.

Hekapoo asked in confusion, "what is going on?"

Nice the door was locked Solaria stared at Hekapoo with an expression of utter mischief.

"Hekapoo, you got jealous of me and another mortal. You will live far longer than I ever can. You are going to carry this memory with you for millennia past my death. You just made a part of me as immortal as you are. I mortified you, I immortalfied, or perhaps just immortalized myself by flirting with a guy. Do you have any idea how... Randy that makes me!?"

"Solaria, are you, are you, what are you talking about? Do you want to become immortal?"

"Immortal? Nah, I just want to have some fun with you, I think that life stops being fun after a certain point and I don't want to live that long. I'm, I'm not good with pain and immortals I have known seem to have a lot of pain. I want to stay mortal, but I also want to share in the glory of what you are. Something beyond Mewman."

Hekapoo blinked. She sat down on the bed remembering a whole bunch of recent unpleasant romantic experiences with mortals, closed her eyes and grimaced while stating.

"Just kiss me once, gently, I want to see if you can control yourself before I agree to anything else."

Solaria sat down beside her, gave her an innocent peck on the cheek and waited.

Hekapoo waited

And waited.

And waited. Finally Hekapoo asked.

"Aren't you going to do something?"

Solaria replied in confusion. "I'm not going to pleasure anyone with their eyes closed and a look of perfect cringe on their face."

Hekapoo's face relaxed, she looked at Solaria and breathed heavily.

"Okay, go ahead, but no rough stuff!"

Solaria looked down.

Those hands.

Those strange strange hands.

So old, so powerful, so pale.

Yet so beautiful, so flawless.

So innocent.

So experienced.

So powerful.

And yet having sex with a girl was something that she clearly had no experience with.

Solaria realized that she had an opportunity to teach a god something about being Mewman.

She realized that she had wanted Hekapoo for so long that she would have been willing to endure any privation. Any test, any trial to have her. She was just so alluring that Solaria couldn't stand it.

She had to be gentle.

Solaria wasn't used to being gentle.

Solaria stood back and carefully kissed Hekapoo's cheek.

Hekapoo recoiled again, her hand subconsciously flying towards Solaria's face for a slap.

She stopped.

Solaria took her hand and gave Hekapoo the offer that she hoped would seal the deal.

She looked into Hekapoo's eyes with an expression of genuine gratitude. Not lust, not greed, not rage, gratitude.

Solaria gently kissed Hekapoo's hand. That was when she realized that this was going to be a different experience. An experience that she had almost forgotten about.

Something gentle.

Something kind.

Something far deeper than her usual... Offerings to mortals.

She lied back on the bed and closed her eyes.

Hekapoo looked deep into Solaria's eyes and nodded solemnly.

Solaria stood up and took off her clothes. Then she gently started taking off Hekapoo's finery.

The flame sorceress continued to comply, completely freaked out by this new experience. Solaria noticed the fear causing Hekapoo's beautifully proportioned body to tremble.

She ran her hand up and down Hekapoo's arm.

Solaria watched as Hekapoo's shivers began to be replaced by giggles.

She kept moving her hand until she stopped, to intertwine her fingers with her. She lied down next to Hekapoo and kissed their intertwined fingers.

Hekapoo asked, "you know for someone who is such a wild fighter you aren't very aggressive in bed."

Solaria continued to kiss as she explained.

"Well I should think not. It's princess warrior in the streets, whore in the sheets. No Prince, (or princess for that matter) wants the opposite of that."

Hekapoo asked in genuine curiosity. "So what, what are you going to do to me?"

Solaria took her hands away, continued to stare into Hekapoo's beautiful eyes and explain.

"Get you to come to me, I am not interested in having sex with anyone who is an unwilling partner."

Solaria looked down.

"With that said..."

She buried her face in Hekapoo's chest, Hekapoo recoiled, she genuinely didn't know wether to gasp, moan or laugh.

So she did all three.

She pushed herself away from Solaria.

But when she looked back Hekapoo could see that Solaria was still giggling. "Sorry, couldn't resist. You really do have the most magnificent set of tits Hekapoo!"

It was so charming, so whimsical, so... Not Solaria. Hekapoo leaned towards Solaria and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

That kiss had broken yet another of Hekapoo's psychological barriers.

Hekapoo slid down Solaria's side and began kissing her neck.

It was Solaria's turn to illustrate how much fun she was having.

She pushed Hekapoo down and started kissing all over her body.

Hekapoo was not made of flesh. She was made of some ethereal energy that allowed her to split off nearly infinite clones and run faster than sound. Just to name two of her many beyond human abilities.

The somewhat corporeal energy was delicious. For Solaria tasting a willing and happy Hekapoo was like licking some kind of concoction of powdered sugar and cocaine.

She couldn't stop licking.

And the taste was just getting better as she too, herself lower.

And lower.

And lower.

To the Flame Sorceresses pussy.

The taste changed from something akin to sugar and coke to a fine wine made up of all the very best things that Solaria could ever imagine. The more she licked the more she wanted.

That was until she realized that the thighs next to her head were putting out enough energy to roast a whole pig. Solaria knew that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

She was pulling raw energy from Hekapoo. To much raw energy, a cosmos breaking quantity of energy.

She had to counterbalance it or she would be fried.

She reached for her wand.

She realized that was an even bigger mistake. Because now the energies of the wand were colliding with Hekapoo's energy inside her body.

It was raising her towards an orgasm that could kill her. But she could see that it would take a while to get there. So she held on.

Just long enough to see that Hekapoo needed help.

She needed to heal.

She needed someone who was tuned to her particular pain.

Solaria let go of the wand.

Everything exploded in a white light as she stated.

"Yip!"

When she was able to open her eyes she saw that her body was drenched with sweat. It wasn't anything like any orgasm she had ever had before. This wasn't full body, this was like every cell in the body.

And she felt insanely hot!

She pushed Hekapoo away and reached for a glass of water next to her bed.

Splash!

Sizzle.

Not water, beer.

She had just doused herself.... In beer!

Water, all Solaria could think about was water!

She grabbed Hekapoo and looked around for water. The only water she could see was the ocean off in the distance.

She needed to go to the ocean.

She stole some of Hekapoo's Magic to create a dimensional portal by a fusing of their two magics.

She ran through the portal.

She ran down the beach.

She let go of Hekapoo.

She dove into the sea.

The ocean water bubbled all around her. Steam exploded off her skin as she erupted from the sea like Aphrodite herself. Stealing fire from the clit of the gods as opposed to burbling up out of a giant clam made from Cronos's testicles. Solaria licked the power in the air all around her and stated.

"Well, that was pretty good for me, was it good for you too?"

Hekapoo nodded in confusion.

Solaria marched back up the beach, picking up the wand and looking at the portal that led back to her bedroom she asked. "Um, does, have you ever made a portal without dimensional scissors before?"

Hekapoo shook her head in the negative.

Solaria carried Hekapoo back through the portal and sealed it as best she could.

Hekapoo keeled onto the bed.

She whispered, "well, that was new and interesting." 


	13. Danger Close.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eclipsa and Sam winding down, Eclipsa continues hustling and continues to learn more about Sam and her family.

After the race Sam took Eclipsa to one of the larger and fancier casino-hotels in the area. Eclipsa just loved all the garish colors and the weird mangling of ultra high tech and faux ancient roman decorations.

Then they got to the spa.

Sam showed Eclipsa around and after a couple of minor misunderstandings Eclipsa relaxed into her spa experience. These earthlings were quite interesting to her. They seemed to value luxury to a degree that even some of the more decadent empires would consider excessive. Luxury and comfort, Eclipsa felt profoundly comfortable, relaxed, even a little loved.

Once that was done they went up to their room. Sam had booked a room on the top floor. With an incredible view of the city.

Sam sat down on a couch in front of the humongous window and gestured for Eclipsa to join her. Eclipsa sat down next to her and they just watched the world go by. There were quite a few things about Earth that had impressed Eclipsa but seeing the whole of the city really did take her breath away, she asked.

"How... Many cities do you have like this on this planet?"

Sam smiled and announced, "hundreds, just in this country alone. This is one of the smaller cities. There are others, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. Those cities are way bigger than this. Millions of people. But, even though I know our deal was that I tell you things about Earth... darling, let's schmooze. Tell me all about yourself."

Sam's eyes shot open as she remembered.

"Oh crap, you said you just got out of jail on a 300 year sentence! And I'm wearing nothing but a bathrobe!"

Eclipsa laughed, "I wasn't in a cell, I was sealed in a crystal. It wasn't fun, but that 300 years went by in the blink of an eye. Also, don't worry, you are very pretty, and your hair does remind me of my lover. But I don't swing that way."

Sam sighed in relief and continued.

"Phew, okay so, tell me about your lover."

"I left my first husband. Awful man, a dandy who would not produce an heir with me. So I went elsewhere. When I gave birth to a daughter who clearly did not look like him, who did look like my lover there was a huge scandal and I had to go on the run with my daughter. I thought I had a way back home when I was given a request to make some weapons for a very powerful entity. But when I completed the weapons the bastard sealed me in a crystal. I would have stayed there forever if not for a distant relative breaking me out of that crystal because she needed her own weapon."

Eclipsa looked off in the distance wistfully.

"It seems that all that most people want from me, weapons and power."

Sam opened her eyes and stated matter of factly.

"I don't want any weapons from you. Hell, if you offered me a weapon I would probably refuse it. My brother likes weapons, but they aren't my thing."

Sam leaned over and hugged her saying, "you don't have to do anything you don't want to as long as I'm around."

Eclipsa hugged her right back and continued. "My second husband was locked up with me. When I got out I freed him as well. He is in another realm right now taking care of some things that need to be taken care of."

Sam asked.

"So, what happened to your daughter?"

"I really don't know, she has probably passed on by now. But I have a couple of leads on where she might have wound up. When I was younger I went to a school, St Olga's. The most powerful families throughout the multiverse sent their daughters there. If my daughter ever went there. And I think it's very likely she did at some point I might be able to track her down. But we can get to that later. From everything that has happened there's not much chance that story has a happy ending. For now I just want... No, I need to relax and enjoy the company of good friends."

Sam smiled and replied, "aw, thanks, I will do everything I can to help you find your daughter. But for now let's just enjoy your ill gotten gains."

Eclipsa and Sam enjoyed their stay. They gambled, they relaxed. Sam showed Eclipsa how computers and the Internet functioned. Eclipsa was particularly curious about the technologies of robotics and 3D printing.

Despite Sam's initial warnings on cheating, Eclipsa kept on gambling. After awhile she drifted over to the poker room where she won big. By this time Eclipsa had learned enough of the local customs and laws to magic up a fake ID. Sam didn't need one. She was 18.

Sam had been taking a nap when she woke up to find that Eclipsa was gone. She guessed correctly where she had wandered off to. The poker room.

Sam went up to Eclipsa and whispered in her ear. "You already have a hundred grand, our room is comped, when will you have enough of this?"

Eclipsa smiled and whispered back, "it's not about the money anymore, it's about this guy right here. He won't leave, I just keep taking his money and he keeps giving it to me. Everyone else comes and goes, not this guy. I'm not going until he goes, he has been too much fun!"

Sam looked across the table. An old man with long gray hair, unbelievably ugly teeth and a bushy, unkempt beard was glaring back at them.

Eclipsa looked like she was having a wonderful time. The old guy was staring daggers. Eclipsa asked.

"So, Jody, are you going to call or fold? She asked already knowing the answer!"

Eclipsa laughed somewhat impolitely.

Jody pushed in all of his remaining chips and slammed down his cards. He had three of a kind.

Eclipsa looked sad for a moment, then she turned over her cards. A king high straight.

Eclipsa took her chips and whispered back to Sam, "yeah I should probably call it a night. The last time I saw that look on someone's face I had to make someone think their knife was a snake."

As Eclipsa stood up from her chair and politely said goodbye to everyone, Jody stood up as well. He growled.

"You have to be cheating."

Eclipsa replied.

"Now now, that's a serious accusation, do you have any evidence to back it up?"

"I've been gambling for decades and no woman was ever able to kick my ass at poker for three hours straight!"

"Well this one did, so now, unless you have any actual evidence...? No? Then I will be leaving with my..."

Jody stepped around the table and reached out to grab Eclipsa by the scruff of her neck. Eclipsa prepared to activate her personal shield. She had been waiting for this incredibly ugly man to lose his mind for awhile now. She wanted to see if she could still beat someone down without killing them. Ever since she sat down opposite him this Jody fellow had rubbed her the wrong way. He was entirely too reminiscent of so many Mewnian nobility.

But before either of them could get a blow across Sam put herself between them.

Eclipsa halted immediately.

Jody stopped and growled.

"Get out of my way little girl!"

Sam shouted, "stop it right now you lunatic! Eclipsa beat you, get over it! Just turn around and walk away before casino security shows up. And you had better pray they get here fast or else I'm going to feed you what's left of your rotten teeth!"

Sam went into a boxing stance and prepared for Jody to make the next move.

Three big, burly security men appeared behind him.

Jody threw up his hands and snapped, "fine, this place is dead anyway. Don't even know why I come here, the comps suck and..."

The whining trailed off as he walked off. Eclipsa hugged Sam and whispered. "Thank you, it's been a long time since anyone stood up for me."

Sam hugged her back and replied, "hey, it's the least I could do for a friend. Now, let's go back up to the room and get some sleep."

* * *

 

Sam was sleeping soundly.

Eclipsa just looked at her for a moment.

These Earthlings were such a delightfully odd bunch.

So powerful in some ways, so limited in others. Their weapons, technology and culture were so vast, complex and multifaceted. Yet, they had almost no magical abilities to speak of.

Which made this particular earthling even more interesting.

Somehow she had stumbled into some sort of magical ability. Not a very big ability, but enough to get Eclipsa's attention. She must have had a trick, some sort of advantage.

Eclipsa reached into one of Sam's pants pockets and took out something that had been bugging her ever since she met Sam. She had something undeniably magical in her possession.

Eclipsa examined the chunk of metal that Sam had used to summon her. Even all these years since it had been formed on a battlefield Eclipsa could still smell the blood on it. The shrapnel had been charged with an unholy energy long before Sam's summoning ritual. It was one of the most magically powerful items that Eclipsa had ever seen. Certainly the most powerful magical item she had ever seen on earth.

Eclipsa hadn't spent enough time with Daniel for him to explain the story behind the shrapnel. Eclipsa was going to find out though, if only because she wanted to get his side of the story. Eclipsa knew enough to know that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable if only because of incomplete information. Never mind personal biases.

Eclipsa took out one of her potions and squeezed a couple of drops of a glowing pink liquid on the metal. Once the incantation was finished she asked the metal a question, "okay, now, how did you come to be in the possession of this family?"

Eclipsa was transported to an area just outside a village in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan. As she descended upon it she got a birds eye view of the battle.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters were swarming towards the village. They had overwhelmed the local and foreign soldiers trying to stop them. Eclipsa fell further to where Daniel was, in a ditch, using a dead man's radio to call in an artillery strike.

Eclipsa couldn't believe how calm, cool and collected the man sounded as he spoke in to the radio. He was surrounded by enemy soldiers, already wounded. But he sounded like he was asking someone politely for a glass of milk.

"Dump all HE on UA72941387"

"Confirm Danger Close"

"Not even Danger Close. Thats my grid. Fuck it all. Send what you can to pick up the pieces later."

A similarly dispassionate voice replied, "shot out."

Daniel put down the radio and picked up a discarded M240 machine gun and continued to hammer away at the attackers. Once the machine gun was empty he leapt into a nearby ditch, covering his head as a storm of metal fell on the battlefield.

High explosive shells burst all around him. All other noise was drowned out by the force of hundreds of pounds of explosives and steel shrapnel blasting across the battlefield. One shell burst very close to Daniel. He exclaimed in agony and went motionless.

The noise and chaos of the battle was replaced by perfect calm. Nothing but the stench of various horrible smells wafting on the breeze.

Eclipsa looked down. Daniel was injured, a chunk of metal had flown into him at such an angle that the ditch hadn't been able to protect him. Blood was leaking out of his neck. Eclipsa saw the chunk of shrapnel that had almost taken his head off. It looked awfully familiar, Eclipsa stated.

"But wait, this makes no sense, you don't die here."

"What! Who was that!"

Daniel couldn't see, his eyes had been forced shut by head trauma. But he could hear a female voice. A female voice meant that whoever this was wasn't Taliban. This made no sense to either of them. These were memories, he shouldn't be able to see her. These were events that happened in the past. She should only be able to observe. Yet, Eclipsa couldn't help but reach out to Daniel. She had to show this man compassion as he faced his death.

Their fingers intertwined and Eclipsa felt energy being taken from her. She shuddered at the impossible thing that this man was apparently doing. But she didn't stop. She could have backed away, but she couldn't. This man was reaching across the vastness of space and time to take healing energy from the queen of darkness herself. She couldn't say no to someone that bold, that confident, that utterly determined to live! Someone who had given more valor than anyone had any right to ask.

The radio squawked. "Reinforcements on their way, eta twelve minutes. Can you hold on until then?"

Daniel reached for the handset. As he coughed up blood he murmured, "don't know, just get here as fast as you can."

Once he had gotten the blood out of his mouth he felt around down and discovered the shrapnel that had almost taken his head clean off. He calmly reached down and pocketed it. Then he looked toward Eclipsa. He couldn't see her but he could feel her and hear her, he stated. "Well, I suppose you are either a hallucination caused by massive blood loss and head trauma. Or a valkyrie come to carry me to Valhalla? No other reason for a woman who speaks English to be here. Well, let's go then, the afterlife is waiting."

Eclipsa knelt down and hugged him. "I'm not a Valkyrie, I'm no warrior. I just, you aren't supposed to die here Daniel! Damn it, you aren't supposed to die here!"

Daniel asked in genuine confusion, "I'm not? Why not? And how do you know my name?"

"You... You just aren't, now hold on dammit! Just hold on!"

Daniel whispered, "okay, if you insist."

Eclipsa held him until she heard the sound of helicopters in the distance. She had to stop the spell before any other "impossible things" happened. As she let go she realized that he had taken a huge amount of dark energy from her. Energy that would metastasize inside him. Eclipsa realized that she had been the one who had given him that exotic form of leukemia that nearly killed him.

She felt guilty, then she realized that she had made it right. She had dissolved that metastasis, a mere fourteen minutes after they had... Met for the first time. She walked away but before she ended the spell he shouted, "hey, whoever, whatever you are, thanks, I owe you one."

As the spell dissolved she shouted back, "you owe me nothing sergeant, absolutely nothing!"

Eclipsa dropped the shrapnel. As it clattered to the surface of the hotel table she realized that she was back in Reno. Sam woke up from her nap. Eclipsa explained, "I know, I know where this came from. I'm, I'm so sorry that your brother had to go through that. I think, I don't understand exactly how but I think I gave him his cancer."

Sam walked over to her and hugged her. Whispering in her ear. "After that day my brother became slightly obsessed with a certain symbol, the ace of spades. I asked him why he was obsessed with that symbol and he said that the day he almost died an angel came to talk to him. He didn't get to see her, but she talked to him and said some things that sounded a little strange. All he managed to see was a glowing light. A light in the shape of the ace of spades. He told me, "something saved me on that battlefield, and that light was all I saw of her. She was strange, downright incomprehensible, but she was kind enough to save me and I can never thank her enough for that."

The words trembled from Eclipsa's lips. "It shouldn't have been possible, I mean, they were memories, they were things that happened. But he somehow, he, he reached out to me and took just enough power from me to stay alive."

Sam hugged harder and whispered, "thank you."

Eclipsa stammered, "no, I there were consequences, he took dark energy from me. I'm, I'm the one who gave him leukemia."

"But you cured that."

"Yes, but he wouldn't have had leukemia if it hadn't been for me."

"No, he wouldn't have, he would have been dead in that ditch. And if I hadn't done that magical ritual with that piece of shrapnel we never would have met. It's a closed time loop, try not to think too much about paradoxes and whatnot. Eclipsa, meeting you, knowing that you were out there looking out for my brother before we even met. This, I can't thank you enough for being there..."

Sam backed out of the hug to face Eclipsa she sobbed loudly as she finished the sentence.

"When we both needed you the most!"


	14. Armed and ready.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I suppose you were wondering why Marco was looking so awful a chapter or two ago? Well it's because of one ever so small change to an event in canon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not but I had this entire chapter written before the season three finale aired. And I have proof too!

"Dearest princesses, congratulations on this wonderful school. I know you see me as an idol. But today you are my idols. You embody everything that princess Turdina, I mean, I stand for. Not letting anyone force you to be someone you are not. Living by your true colors, loving who you are!"

Before he could say another word the sound of a dimensional chainsaw rang out. Everyone looked up to see a car falling from the sky.

The car fell on top of three princesses, Two Heads, Spiderbite and Ponyhead.

Before anyone could react the cars driver side front door opened. Out of which stepped Ms Heinous who confidently stated.

"Princess Turdina is a fraud, and I have the evidence to... What's everybody staring at!?"

She looked down at the two dead and one grievously wounded princesses she had landed on top of, speechless. As Gemini got out of the car he looked down and said.

"Oh my."

Heinous began berating Rastacore, any sane person would have known better than to expect a being whose primary brain hadn't grown back yet to make a dimensional portal. Especially with as imprecise and unreliable a tool as a dimensional chainsaw. This was entirely Heinous's fault, but she was looking for someone to blame.

Marco just stood there, horrified. Something broke in him. Something that he thought had healed a long time ago. Something much more delicate than he ever would have guessed it had been the first time it broke. There was only one thing that he could do. He had to kill this woman. He had never liked Ms Heinous, he had never forgiven her for attempting to brainwash him. This was the last straw. He had to make sure that Ms Heinous would never hurt anyone ever again. He had barely known Princesses Two Heads and Spiderbite. All annoyance, dislike and distrust that Marco had ever had towards Princess Ponyhead went flying out the window. He had to avenge their deaths.

He roared in agony and rushed the car. As he drew his dimensional scissors the princesses standing between him and Heinous parted like the Red Sea. He hit the ground like a baseball player sliding into home, cutting a dimensional portal which had its terminus 30 meters above the Afflicted Forest.

The weight and position of the car meant that it and Rastacore, still tied to it fell in first. Followed moments later by Heinous and Gemini. 

Marco jumped in after them. As he plummeted through the air above the forest he realized that if he hit the ground he wasn't sure that he would survive. He made another incision, this one came out near a shed outside Hekapoo's home. Once he was safely on the ground there he flung open the door of the shed to see his gear and his trusty dragon cycle Nachos waiting for him.

Nachos leapt into action, she had seen that look on Marco's face before and knew exactly what it meant.

As they flew away a Hekapoo clone who happened to be outside doing some maintenance work on the buildings plumbing system looked up and shouted.

"Marco? What's going on? Why are you wearing a dress?"

"Can't talk now, but thank you for all your help H-pooh."

She wasn't able to say, "don't call me that." Before he was out of earshot.

By sheer luck Henious, Gemini and Rastacore landed on top of their car. The combined efforts of the cars shocks, suspension, crumple zones, some tree branches and soft ground had kept them from dying in the fall.

Heinous asked. "Where are we?"

Gemini replied, "looks like the Afflicted Forest."

"Yes, Rastacore, get us out of here!"

The only half regenerated lizard monster/hit man tried to start his dimensional chainsaw. Before it caught something came swooping out of the sky.

As leathery wings fluttered just above him the lizard creature known as Rastacore lost his chainsaw. The tool was clean in two by a blade with way more energy and inertia behind it than its relatively small size would suggest.

Rastacore couldn't see what was responsible. But his employers could.

It was a man, a very tall and muscular man wearing a dress. With a terrifying visage. His eyes burned with an indescribable rage. A dragon-cycle flew away behind him as he slashed the still healing body of Rastacore into pieces and screamed.

"Kar!"

The man's right arm began transforming into something. Some kind of monster unlike anything that Gemini or Heinous had ever seen before. As if the forest itself was under its command a huge plume of flame emerged from behind the rider of the dragon-cycle as his arm grew and changed.

As the monster arm finished emerging it roared, in triumph, ecstasy and pain. Once it was fully formed it spoke.

**"Ugh, where are we? what's going on!?"**

The man growled to the arm, "time to go to work."

The tentacle monster-arm-thing snaked around the still living body of Rastacore and swallowed the chopped up parts of the assassin, whole.

While this horror was playing out Gemini screamed at the top of his lungs, "run! I'll hold him off!"

Ms Heinous turned to run as the last few bits of Rastacore were swallowed.

Gemini stood with his arms wide open, he had no way to stop this, man? Monster? Whatever the hell he was. But he didn't care about any of that, he had to save his lady. He shouted at the thing that had just chopped up and consumed his compatriot.

"You shall not paaaa!"

With four lightning fast sword strokes Gemini was no more. His remains drifted away on a strong breeze like a bundle of rags in a windstorm.

Ms Heinous ran, she ran faster than she ever could have imagined she could run. But it still felt painfully slow. She was in the Afflicted Forest, a place infamous in the wider multiverse a breeding ground for diseases and creatures more horrifying than what all but a handful of the most deranged minds could imagine. It was atop a geological anomaly that caused the ground to belch fire occasionally. Without dimensional transportation, rescue, or even a weapon her odds of getting out of this place alive were practically nonexistent.

For now though she only had one thing on her mind. Putting as much distance between her and that... It wasn't a man, it wasn't a monster. That... thing! that just killed her servants!

She hid under a log which had fallen on some boulders. Pushing herself as deep underneath it as she could. She whimpered.

"I'm sorry, I'll be a good girl, I didn't mean to kill those girls. It was all Rastacores fault!"

Memories, faintly recalled memories washed through her mind.

"Mama, Mama please, if you can hear me. Please save me! I'll be good I swear, please save me Mama!"

The log lifted away. The thing that was hunting her had found her. As the tentacle arm discarded the log like a toothpick she found herself inches away from a sharp, rusty blade. He spoke in a deep, raspy voice.

"This is for Ponyhead, and every other girl you hurt. Not just tonight, but every day you were in charge of St Olga's. Your madness and stupidity ends here, Heinous."

As he raised his sword Henious screamed, "wait, I have to know. Who, what are you!?"

"You don't recognize me?"

He cleared his throat. His voice now a few octaves higher in pitch, a little less raspy sounding much more familiar to her.

"I'm Princess Turdina."

As his identity dawned on her the razor sharp blade began to travel through her neck.

 

"Get some more towels, where is the first aid kit!" Star shouted over the din of the scene.

With her healing spells she had been just barely able to save Princess Two Head. Several other princesses were wounded, broken limbs, cuts, slashes, scrapes. She was too busy taking care of the wounded to form any opinion on what had just happened.

Someone had thrown a blanket over the remains of the two deceased princesses.

The scene was starting to wind down, but the area was still full of crying girls.

A dimensional portal opened. Star drew down on it with her wand, but instead of another threat it was Marco. She sighed and spoke.

"Phew, Marco, thanks. That was quick thinking cutting that portal. I think you saved... uh, what's that in your hand?"

The tentacle arm was gone. In one hand he held his sword, in the other was something far more horrifying. Princesses stopped crying long enough to activate their camera phones as he walked back to the podium. Once there he rested his sword against the lectern and rested the horrible object atop it as he took off his dress.

Underneath was a ragged set of his usual clothes. Ripped apart by the sudden growth, then return to normal size of the young man wearing them. He spoke.

"Princesses of St Olga's academy I have lied to you. I am not a princess at all. I'm not even a girl. I'm just a boy, from Earth, called Marco Diaz."

"I have failed you, I can never apologize enough, or even think that anything I could ever do can make up for what we have all lost today. I hope this will... Will... I only hope that you will find it in your hearts someday to forgive me for all this. I'm sorry, I have to go."

As he finished the sentence Hekapoo showed up. She had tracked Marco from her realm. Trying to understand what was going on. Star ran up to the two of them as he whispered to them, just about to cry.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

He scooped up his sword, made an incision with his dimensional scissors and left St Olga's forever. Leaving behind a speechless crowd.

And the severed head of Ms Heinous aka Meteora Butterfly staring at them with a look of horror permanently engraved on her face.


	15. The universe according to Hekapoo?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pillow talk and mythology of this version of the Star vs the Forces of Evil multiverse.
> 
> And with Halloween coming up I should probably do some... Jantom shipping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to take a moment to thank the writers of Star vs the Forces of Evil for publishing The Magic Book of Spells. I can't even describe how helpful it has been in writing both this work and StarFan13 and the Forces of Evil.

Solaria and Hekapoo were still on the bed. Solaria was still soaked in evaporating seawater. They had almost caught their breath as Solaria asked.

"So, Hekapoo, seeing as how we have done... Whatever the heck that was, could you please tell me what you are?"

Hekapoo blinked, "what do you mean? You must know exactly what I am if you have read the book of spells."

Solaria swirled a finger around in the air and replied. 

"Well, there's the Book of Spells and it says that you manage interdimensional travel. But, to paraphrase Glossarick, 'I'm a dipper, not a skimmer.' I have had a look at other books. Books that predate the destruction of the first Mewni castle. In some of these books it's insinuated that you used to be named..." 

"Hathor." 

Hekapoo smiled nervously and replied, "no idea, I don't know who this Hathor is."

Solaria replied calmly, "okay, suppose I was thinking of someone else. This Hathor deity sure does sound interesting though. My information suggests that she held a power, 'beyond all mortal comprehension." 

Hekapoo blew air out of her mouth and plunged her face into the bed.

"Used to be, I used to be Hathor. I'm not Hathor anymore, I put all that behind me."

"Why?"

"Because I fucked it up!"

"What did you fuck up?" 

"I... fucked up creation, the act of the creation of life. That was my fault and I made a mess of it."

Solaria looked at her in disbelief and said, "okay, how did you do that?"

Hekapoo asked, "you promise you won't tell anyone?"

"Sure."

"I mean seriously, this is my most... This is the secret I'm most ashamed of."

Solaria smiled, gently took her hand and said, "it's fine if you don't want to. We can always save it for later."

Hekapoo gulped, raised her head from the bed and explained. 

"As you know there are three ways that life is created. Magically, asexually and sexually. Magically created life is the most durable. Or the most delicate, depending on its purpose. Once a magically created life form fulfills its purpose it tends to just blink out of existence. Glossarick is the oldest being in the universe, he was created to allow the universe to understand itself. Since understanding is a nebulous concept when you are talking about something as vast and complicated as the universe itself he goes on." 

"One of Glossarick's favorite hobbies used to be seeding the universe with life forms of various sorts. He would just start the processes of life in various places and let things run to see where they would go. As the universe expanded it became more and more complex. As it became more complex, life began to form. Not just life created by Glossarick, life began to emerge spontaneously. However all of these life forms had one thing in common. They were asexual, they produced by colning themselves, or splitting in two! This created stable but, in Glossarick's view, boring life forms."

Hekapoo gulped again. 

As many times as she had justified this to herself, justifying it to another...

To a mortal no less.

"Sexual reproduction is the most commonly encountered means of reproduction among higher life forms. Have you ever wondered why this is?"

Solaria replied, "no, not really."

"Well, it's actually quite simple. When beings engage in sexual reproduction a hybrid is created of the two respective parents. A hybrid combining the elements of two beings. This hybrid is usually stronger, healthier and more intelligent than the parents. Especially if it is smart enough to learn lessons taught by its parents and others. If it can use, not just its innate instincts, but other abilities. This requires language, which is a concept that asexually reproducing creatures usually aren't able to figure out on their own. You need to become smart enough to learn language, but to become smart enough to learn you have to evolve to the point where you can do that. That... It seems, requires sexual reproduction."

Solaria cocked her head and asked, "wait, are you saying that you... Invented sex and that language itself was a byproduct of the invention of sex?"

Hekapoo shuddered and replied, "in the sense of the female gender and the act itself, yes. And there's so much more that comes as a byproduct of sex."

Solaria leaned back and asked, "well, I can't see what you are so nervous about. Sex is great! I like it, you like it, all sorts of life forms seem to like it. So what went wrong?" 

Hekapoo growled 

"Whar went wrong is that when sex was invented it kicked off an arms race. Life forms that indulged in it became stronger. But so did the life forms that predated on those life forms. And the life that existed as parasites on those life forms. It... It made any existing conflict worse and invented a whole lot of new conflicts. Conflicts going up to the scale of galactic wars and down the the scale of the struggles between tiny multicellular life forms."

Hekapoo laid back, putting her head in Solaria's lap and looked up at her with an expression of exhaustion, pointing to her face as she said. "All because of this thing here."

Solaria asked, "okay, I can see how sparking off constant never ending conflict could weigh on someone. But there's something I don't understand, you created sex itself. How?"

Hekapoo blinked and smiled, "Every planet has a possibility of life. However most planets do not have the environment to create anything more than the simplest forms of life, created when certain chemical and electrical phenomena line up. Once life is created it takes a very long time for it to become something as complex as a fish."

"Unless a member of the MHC intervenes. And everyone on the Magical High Commission has meddled in some way with almost every planet in the multiverse that sustains civilized life. We... Point life in certain directions which ensures that evolution goes as fast and as smoothly as possible. In the earliest days we meddled a great deal. We... We created incredible things, hybrid creations of ourselves and biological life. Incredibly powerful creatures, gods by your standards."

"But... They were all insane, or they eventually went insane. They saw themselves as the lords of all creation. That everything belonged to them. So they consumed lower forms of life, and when they found each other, they consumed each other. Most were immortal so it became the job of the second generation of life to defeat the beings that made up the first."

"Many of the second generation were immortal as well and consigned themselves to an eternity of conflict against their ancestors. The MHC assisted them with the creation of weapons and techniques of battle. They, they did exist for thousands of years. Trapped in pocket dimensions, lost on forgotten worlds. Some even took over whole dimensions as their battle space."

"Time went by and the first generation began to submit to the grinding effects of conflict. Immortality is a more complex and difficult subject than most people imagine. In order to maintain immortality one has to want to maintain it. If a being is old enough, in enough pain, it will seek the means to end itself and anything that can be made, can also be unmade. So they submitted, they submitted to our mercy and we unmade these entities when they asked. But they had to ask, we didn't have the power to destroy our own creations."

"The second generation was granted a different path. For their bravery and loyalty in the first war they were allowed to be reborn without the memories and scars of the conflict they had just survived. They were reshaped into billions of different life forms. Simpler life forms. We... We would not try to create gods again, we had learned that lesson. We decided that if a life form could evolve to that kind of power without our influence it would also have the tempering of wisdom and experience needed to allow it to live and not be an insane destroyer of everything that could possibly challenge it. We took a hands off approach. I... I changed my identity from the mother of all creation to the forger of dimensional scissors. A much less important job."

Solaria asked, "okay, so if you took a hands off approach with the rest of the multiverse then why is the MHC so close to the Mewnian royal family? What makes us so special?"

Hekapoo smiled and announced. "Mewni was the first planet in the multiverse to be entirely developed by native, non magical life. Plants, trees, various creatures and what ultimately became the monsters. There was a complication though. The monsters became far more powerful than expected. Somehow they had developed an immunity to most forms of magic. Something had to be done so Glossarick informed the life forms of a distant world about a wonderful new planet. Bursting with resources and provided them with the means to colonize this world."

Hekapoo held up her dimensional scissors.

"Within three months of those colonists arriving here war had broken out. This is what the Magical High Commission has done for most of its existence it seems. Helped parts of our creation clean up after other parts of our creation. Even though the monsters weren't actually our creation." 

Solaria rolled over and looked down at a pile of notes she had stating, "huh, well, that certainly fills in some gaps in my knowledge."

She thought, _"hmm, my chapter in the book is going to be rather interesting indeed."_

Then Solaria realized something.

"Wait, you still haven't explained how you invented sex and the female gender."

Hekapoo looked away, stretched out her arms and explained. "All asexually producing creatures are male, up until a certain point. For some reason the universe prefers to expend its energy in a masculine way until it is affected by an outside force. In this case the outside force was me. Through numerous generations I use spells and my own energy to feminize the most feminine life forms in these populations. I do this until the first biological females are born. I also... Well, I don't know if instruction is the right word, perhaps the best word would be influence the population to the proper technique. It's not like in a classroom, or even something like me telling you how to do something. The way my energy affects them. It's more a voice in the back of your head. Something ever so gently prodding your natural instincts to go in a certain direction. I do this until sexual reproduction becomes self sustaining."

"After I did this on a couple thousand planets something happened. It seems I had influenced the flow of energy across the universe permanently. From that point onward female life forms began randomly sprouting up across the universe. That was when I decided to stop being Hathor, and I chose to do something else with my immortality."

"The moment that happened my appearance changed. I became shorter and the sun between my horns changed to a flame."

"When this change happened I also discovered that I could produce clones of myself. I don't know how, and neither does anyone else on the MHC. But it seems my meddling with all these different life forms has resulted in me becoming the multiverse's greatest practioner of asexual reproduction ironically enough." 

"But it's not just the ability to make clones. My meddling has left impossibly deep scars. Every life form I meddled with has a limited genetic memory. They don't know who I am, or where I am. But they know that I am their mother in the deepest and most ancestral sense. And they know that I abandoned them. I had to, there was so much else of creation to look after. This engenders a resentment. Duality, masculine, feminine. Doomed to hurt, dish out hurt and be hurt again in a never ending cycle. Pain and pleasure eternally mixed, unable to contain each other. Unable to win."

"So yeah, for all my power, I still feel and I, I feel a lot of pain."

Solaria's smile was gone, she asked.

"How... How do you endure it? The pain of that connection to so many life forms?"

"I endure it by continuing to spread love, as much love as I can. And for all the love I give, all the favors, all the tools, dreams of technology, every now and then someone comes along who surprises me. Even after all this time and all these civilizations. You..." 

Hekapoo looked out the window at the sea off in the distance.

"You were the first mortal female who ever seduced me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, every other female I... Wow! Huh, the last one was probably Ariadne. Wow, how long ago was that? She was a... Well it's hard to describe what she was, immortal, second generation of life. She was... Wow I miss her, she wound up in a battle with another immortal. Well, actually eleven of them. I..."

Hekapoo looked off into the distance. Solaria had known enough warriors to know a stress induced flashback when she saw one. Solaria just hugged her and whispered, "it will be okay, whatever happens, we will get through it together."

 

 

* * *

 

Sunlight streaming in.

Bob crawled out of the bunk bed.

He was really enjoying his time in Mewni.

He was really enjoy spending time with Janna. Who was sleeping in the top bunk.

" _She's so cute._ " He thought.

He stretched his legs and started walking towards the bathroom. Several new unwelcome itches informed him of another thing to do.

_"Gonna have to get bug spray, and lots of it."_

He kept walking.

_"This Spode guy sounds weirdly familiar. Where do I know that name from? Eh, one way or another he won't be my problem anymore. Star will have him arrested for high treason and that will be..."_

He turned a corner.

He realized that he was face to face with a demon.

He instinctively reached for his crucifix. It wasn't there, he took it off to sleep and he was only half dressed.

He looked around for a weapon. Again, half dressed. On his second trip to Mewni he had brought a weapon, by now he had brought several, but he didn't have one on him this early in the morning.

He remembered.

_"Demon Prince, Star has a friend who is a demon Prince!"_

The demon tuned to look at him. Bob panicked.

" _Oh crap, he is looking right at me!"_

Bob realized that he would have to do something here and somehow he picked the right thing.

"Hello, um, Prince Tom? I presume? I mean it's not like we have ever met, before. Um, my name is... Robert, but everyone calls me Bob."

He faintly realized that he had extended his hand for a handshake.

" _Shit! What am I doing? I'm shaking hands with a fucking demon!?!"_

Tom took his hand, gave a somewhat disinterested handshake and replied, "hey."

Bob nervously looked around and asked, "hey, um, do you know where Star is?" 

Tom replied, "there was an emergency with the army someplace where I do not want to ever go again. Marco is still asleep but Star is gone for..." 

Tom looked him up and down. He realized that Bob looked terrified.

"Oh crap, you are from Earth aren't you?"

Bob nodded.

"So I imagine the whole horns and three eyes thing is a little... Overwhelming?" 

"Yeah, and the purple skin too."

Tom scratched the back of his neck and announced.

"Sorry, most humans don't see me like this. I have a camouflage spell if you..."

"No! No no no. I I like to be honest with people in my dealings and I figure if a demon is going to make the time to talk to me I should respect his appearance."

Tom looked somewhat askance and stated.

"Really? Make time? I didn't know my time was so valuable?"

"Well, you are a demon Prince right? I mean I imagine you have lots of souls to torture and whatnot, right, heh heh?"

Bob cringed, expecting to be dragged somewhere.

"Actually all that work is delegated to lesser demons. I'm free to do whatever I want."

Tom disinterestedly examined his fingernails. Bob opened his eyes and asked.

"Oh, then what do you do?"

"Whatever interests me. I have all sorts of side hustles and scams. Evil is a very big business and I never lack for business. But I don't know. It loses its luster after awhile. Trying something different here with Star. Although I got to admit being good sure does feel evil somedays."

"So... I'm told that you spend a lot of time with Star, even though she is an ex? How... Is that supposed to work?"

"Little secret, just between you and me?"

Bob nodded.

"She isn't exactly an ex. I'm kinda still hitting that."

"Even though she is dating Marco?"

"Yeah, it's pretty messed up isn't it? I'm thinking I'm going to have to break it off soon though. You see his regency Marco Diaz isn't quite able to give what her highness wants in a romantic sense. So she brought me in. But I don't think I'm going to keep dating her, there's no connection anymore it's just..."

Tom realized that he had Bob's attention.

He had said too much.

"So, alright, I was lying. The real reason I stay around is because Star keeps getting into fights and. I'm worried that one day she is going to bite off way more than she can chew. I mean this monster hunt she is leading it's... demons know something about pointless crusades." 

Bob leaned back in a bit of shock, asking.

"So the monster hunt is pointless?"

"Well, it's pointless for her. She, she is taking on way too much trying to get this all done by herself. Even with the Mewnian army backing her up. The army is stretched to almost breaking out there on the front lines and they. They are told that their families back home are supposed to be nice to monsters that seem to look just like what they are cleaving with their swords? That's what makes it so bad. Most of the monsters Star tracks down are really bad. But she is sacrificing her essence and all her political capital to deal with this. I've never seen Star get this obsessed before, it's a bad color on her."

Bob replied in an awed tone.

"You know for a demon, you really sound like a nice guy right now."

Tom smiled and replied.

"Thanks, I try to be...

Through gritted teeth, Tom finished the sentence,

"Really really hard."

"Rage issues?"

"Am I that obvious?"

Bob finally loosened up a bit and replied.

"I might have seen similar behavior a few times. Ever hear a Zionist scream when anyone gets 'up in the grill' of one of gods chosen people?"

"Nope."

"Ever seen a God lay waste to two whole cities because a bunch of the people who lived there had some lapses of moral judgment?"

Tom looked away with a faux haughty tone.

"Hmm, I may have heard a similar story. Second or third hand of course."

"Well I'm just saying, for something that is supposed to be a manifestation of all the good in the world. God can be a bit of dick from time to time."

Tom smiled subtly and looked away completely. Bob asked in confusion.

"What, you aren't going to go nuts because I mentioned God?"

"Nah, I don't care about that guy. Never met him, likely never will. And even if I did I would have three questions."

"What would that be?"

"Why was I created? Why is so much of existence pain? and why is so much of the worst pain the kind you inflict on others?"

Bob gasped.

"That's... Interesting, suppose it's showing that I have never spoken to a demon before."

"Well you seem to be doing just fine for your first attempt."

Janna walked up and said, "hey Tom, Bob, heh, you sound like you should be hosting some shitty morning radio show."

They both giggled politely at the joke, Janna asked. "So, I suppose you weren't kidding about wanting to talk to a demon, something about understanding the full picture?"

Bob smiled and announced brightly.

"Yes, it's only been a few minutes but this has been fascinating, do you and Tom have any business with each other?"

"Um yeh, just this one thing, Bob. You said you liked me?"

Bob nodded.

Janna grabbed Tom by one of his horns and asked.

"Then show me how much you like me!"

She drew Tom into a deep kiss.

Janna took her lips off of his face and asked, "jealous much?"

Bob smiled brightly and stated.

"No, I told you, asexual. You aren't my girl. You can make kissy faces with anyone you like. That said it's probably not a good idea to kiss a demon prince without. His. Permission." 

Bob was pointing towards Tom.

Janna looked in the demon prince's eyes.

They were burning, quite literally, he roared "Why does every single earthling female treat me like a piece of meat? I am not your toy and I will never give you what you are looking for. Leave me alone you witch!"

Janna danced away from Tom and started walking away briskly. Genuinely concerned that there was some line that she had just crossed and it might mean eternal punishment.

Bob said, "I'm sorry, most earthling girls aren't like that."

Tom went back to his normal conversational tone of voice and explained, "yeah I know I was just messing with her."

Tom threw his arm over Bob's shoulder and yelled, "yo, earth girl. I'm going to go get some breakfast with your friend here. You wanna come with?"

Janna turned around, she was looking nervous and confused as hell. Bob smiled back and said quietly. "This sounds really good, but I really do need to use the crapper."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who might think that the idea of a member of the Magical High Commission retiring, or in this case, semi-retiring being absurd. Apparently there is precedent in canon. Feel free to look up one Reynaldo the Bald Pate.


	16. Roderick and Eclipsa.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How two of our antagonists came to work together.

Sam and Eclipsa were on a mission.

Sam felt profoundly odd. She had never gone in for dressing all frou frou. But now she was at a level of frou frou she didn't think was physically possible for her.

Sam was wearing an impossibly complicated dress that had taken a skilled tailor a week to manufacture, at great expense. It was mostly made of silk, and a few other high end materials.

Sam loved it and hated it. She loved how glamorous it made her feel. While she hated the thought that the money that went into making this could be used to buy something far more useful. Like a car, or something.

The tiara though. Sam just loved that. Among his more combative skills, Sam's brother Daniel was an amateur jewelry maker. When Sam told him about Eclipsa's plan to infiltrate a really fancy school and their need for a very fancy disguise Daniel snapped his fingers and said, "fancy? Got you covered, sis."

Not long after his recovery he had whipped up the tiara and a matching necklace and rings. The gems were mostly synthetic rubies with a few other synthetic stones mixed in. It would take a close examination to see that the gems were synthetic and the gold was simply gold plated. 

When Daniel handed Sam and Eclipsa the jewelry Eclipsa was quite impressed. Sam just smiled and said, "that's just the sort of thing that Daniel does."

In order to reduce the risk of being identified as one of the most notorious people in the history of the multiverse Eclipsa was dressed in a niquab. The tall, fabulously dressed earthling and the relatively short Mewnian Queen made for a rather curious image as they stood in front of St Olga's.

Placed atop one of the crenellations of the building was something neither Sam or Eclipsa expected to see. A severed head. It looked Mewman. 

As they entered the gates Eclipsa was growing nervous. The school was plastered with all manner of defiant graffiti. She observed.

"Oh wow, I mean, this place wasn't exactly all that impressive when I went here but it looks like things have gone... downhill somewhat."

Sam replied, "well, I wouldn't know, hey, excuse me?"

A tiny girl carrying a bag of radishes walked by. Sam politely asked.

"I'm a new student, can you tell me where I check in? and can you tell me why is there a severed head up there?"

"The robots will be out in a moment to register you. That is the head of the former headmistress, Ms Heinous. She came back last night, killed two girls and wounded a bunch of others. But Boy Princess Marco avenged them!" 

After taking a moment to think reverently of the boy Princess the tiny girl started walking away. She turned back for a moment, waved and shouted. "Nice to meet you, I just love your tiara!"

Sam waved back and replied, "nice to meet you too." As a big scary robot with a clipboard walked up. In a terrifying, distorted voice it asked Sam.

"Name?"

"Princess... Cynitia."

"Dimension?"

"Earth."

"Kingdom?"

"Earth."

The robot grunted.

"Yeah I know you said Earth, but which kingdom? There's more than one on Earth."

"Um..."

Eclipsa piped up.

"Saudi Israelia."

'Princess Cynitia's' jaw dropped as the robot completed his checklist.

"Okay, we will put you in room twelve to start. Once you have all your things unpacked we will have to ask that your handmaiden leave. Welcome to St. Olga's reform school."

As they went down the halls Sam asked her niquab wearing partner in crime.

"What the hell were you thinking? Saudi Israelia? Do you have any idea how insane that would sound to literally anyone from Earth!?"

"But he wasn't from Earth."

"He knew there was more than one kingdom there."

Eclipsa chuckled and continued.

"Oh come on, it's actually not uncommon for there to be multiple kingdoms across a single planet. And robots aren't generally known for doing research. I got us in didn't I?"

Sam looked around and replied.

"Alright, so now that we are in where do we look?"

"Well, from what I remember there isn't much of a library or archive here. So our best option would probably be to find out what happened to St. Olga herself."

"Uh huh, and how do we do that?"

Eclipsa closed her eyes for a moment and announced.

"Robot repair, down this way, come on!"

Sam looked both ways, feeling increasingly paranoid as she opened the door that Eclipsa was pointing to. As Eclipsa glided into the room Sam took one last look and closed the door behind her, locking it.

Amid the various items in the room Sam was utterly lost. Even though it was clearly a workshop she didn't recognize any of the tools or technologies inside. But Eclipsa did, shortly after discarding her niquab she found exactly who she was looking for.

"Jackpot!"

"What?"

Eclipsa smiled and gestured.

"My dear Samantha, I give you St Olga herself!"

"That pile of junk?"

"Yeah, oh, hold on."

Eclipsa grabbed a power cord, plugged it in and the junk pile stood up. Taking on the form of a robot maid who promptly asked Eclipsa.

"Young lady, did you unplug me?"

"Nope, it wasn't me, but can you be so kind as to tell me where I can find my daughter? Her name is Meteora."

The robot replied.

"I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name."

Eclipsa replied deadpan. "Okay, let's try something different then."

Eclipsa opened her up and accessed archival memories. Sam observed.

"Wow, these robots seem to be preposterously easy to hack into."

Eclipsa explained.

"Yeah that's always been a problem with magical robots. In some ways magical robots are more advanced than earthling robotics. In other ways earth tech is much better. Your security software is way better than anything else I have seen in the wider multiverse, okay, so, let's try... girl with cloverleaf cheek marks."

One file.

"Mommy look, my cheeks are glowing!"

Eclipsa and Sam's jaws dropped at the sight of the memory. Eclipsa whispered out, "oh, so my hunch was right."

After watching the recording Sam concluded. "That's the saddest thing I've ever seen. I'm so sorry Eclipsa."

Eclipsa just pushed back further, going deeper into the robots memories. Soon she found the moment when St Olga met the girl in question.

"This child is unfit to rule the kingdom, she is absolutely Heinous!"

"Heinous, what a pretty name."

Eclipsa and Sam simultaneously whispered, "no."

They fast forwarded the memory. To the last memory St Olga had before being turned off.

"Mother, I have been working for you, unpaid for the past twenty years. I've had enough of your henpecking and your incompetence. I'm taking over the school."

"Over my deactivated body young lady!"

Eclipsa ran into the hallway. Up some stairs to a spot with a window that overlooked the severed head. Sam was right behind her.

Eclipsa reached outside and grabbed the head.

Eclipsa saw her husbands teeth in her mouth. But she had to be sure.

She pumped a tiny dose of magical energy into the rotting skull.

The skulls cheeks lit up.

Cloverleafs.

Eclipsa cradled the head in her arms as she came down the stairs. An ever growing group of princesses gathered around to see what was going on. No one said anything as Eclipsa went back into the repair room with Sam.

Sam went berserk. She grabbed St Olga and smashed her like a rag doll. All the while Eclipsa just knelt there with her daughters head in her arms.

Once there was nothing left for Sam to smash she shouted.

"This Marco, I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him. I swear that he is going to pay for this! I sw..."

Eclipsa interrupted her.

"Sam, I need you to do one last thing for me. Then our partnership is done. You will not help me get justice. This is not your fight. It was never meant to be your fight."

"But they can't! He, they... can't get away with what they did to you, what they did to your dddd, daughter!"

Sam couldn't say anymore over her tears. Eclipsa simply continued in an incredibly dispassionate tone.

"I know, and they won't, but your part in this is done."

"What, why? I want to help you avenge her!"

"Because we made a deal! That if anyone got hurt that we were done! Well, people are going to get hurt as a result of what I must do next!"

"But I still want to help you! I want to make them suffer! I want to chop off Marco's head!"

"You can't."

"Why not!"

"Because this is my fight, not yours. Sam, you aren't a warrior and I don't want you to become a warrior. You were just my guide to Earth. We aren't even on Earth anymore. You have fulfilled the terms of our arrangement and then some. You have gone above and beyond. But we are done. I can't ask you to join me in this and I don't want you to join me. This is going to be very very bad." 

Samantha grabbed a rag and blew her nose, replying in an uncertain tone.

"Okay."

"That said, there is one thing that I need you to do. No one will get hurt. But as soon as you are done you take these scissors and you go back to Earth. From there you can do whatever you want. If I succeed I will come back and get you. If I fail you can go wherever you like, but don't ever mention my name to anyone. As far as anyone is concerned you will just be some fool I hired to deliver a message and from what I know about Star she isn't the kind of person who would shoot the messenger."

"Okay."

"I'm going to need you to break into the MHC headquarters."

 

Sir Roderick was in a profoundly good mood, at least by his standards. News of the St Olga's incident was spreading through the multiverse. There was no way that Queen Star and her precious regent Marco Diaz were getting out of this unscathed. The allied realms were already on the ragged edge of mutiny because of their monster integration program. With the bulk of the regular army off hunting monsters and the navy largely useless for the job of riot suppression. When that mutiny kicked off he was going to be in command of the one force that would stand any chance of reasserting control. 

Things were going better than his most optimistic scenarios predicted. He remembered a conversation he had with one of those morons investigating him in the great hall of Mewni castle. Some chubby kid from Earth... Ferguson, that was his name. He had dropped in on Mewni castle when he heard about the investigation and meeting him had put his fears to rest.

That child, in every sense of the word; had no idea of what he was doing, or even who he was. They had wound up talking about economics and that brat had introduced him to the concept of the invisible hand of Adam Smith. 

Sir Roderick Spode was familiar with the works of Adam Smith. But he wasn't what you would call a fan, still...

Some invisible hand appeared to be guiding things into the most advantageous position possible for the Knight-General of Mewni. Moon the Undaunted was out of the picture for the foreseeable future. King River had been killed by some mysterious assailant. Suspected to be one of the escaped monsters. Food distribution and management in Mewni had completely collapsed while his supply lines and hordes of food were buying him the undying loyalty of everyone who he was able to feed. After Ludo's sabotages he had a near monopoly on food supplies. He just needed a few more pieces to fall into place.

There were a few unexpected complications. There always were when putting together something this big. A few, relatively minor elements weren't quite where he wanted them to be. The Earthlings weren't making weapons quite as fast as he expected them to. There was only one that was really bothering him though. Something had gotten into the last few shipments of MREs from Earth. It had been suspected to be rats at first, but this was unlikely. After Ludo got thrown into the void again his rat army had been exterminated. Moreover if it had been rats they would have eaten everything. Whoever this was had only torn open the pouches and taken chocolate bars.

"Kids looking for a sugar rush? Perhaps. Black marketeers? No, they would have taken the whole shipment not just the bars. It's not that it was a big thing it's that it was a weird thing. Weird things usually seem to lead to weirder things." Roderick speculated out loud to nobody as he walked through the corridors of his estate.

Roderick entered his study, his secure room sealed against the most powerful magics in the multiverse. Much to his surprise he found a woman with green hair inside. He asked.

"Who are you? And who gave you permission to be in here?"

She replied.

"I love the flowers you keep here, contrasts nicely with all of your... manly decorations."

"That's the cleaning staff's doing, not me. My question still stands, who are you?"

The woman turned around. He saw her cheek marks. Whoever this woman was, she was of the Mewnian Royal family. He immediately reached for his pistol and dropped the safety. As his sight picture settled on her cute face he pulled the trigger on his Dan Wesson Eco 45 caliber pistol.

All he got was a deafening click. She spoke.

"Sounds like you are missing something Sir Roderick. I think it's called a firing pin?"

As he looked down at his useless weapon she picked up his full sized Dan Wesson Discretion 45 caliber pistol from his desk. The large pistol with a long sound suppressor appeared to be positively gigantic in her small hands. Her delicate, gloveless, flawlessly healed hands.

His anti magic defenses in the study would have negated many of the traditional weapons of Mewnian royalty. So she was using his own weapons against him. All his planning, all his work, all his favors, all his hope for a new Mewni. Dissolving before his eyes. He reholstered his compact pistol and replied.

"Alright, you have me. I will not surrender. Go ahead and shoot. I refuse to face trial. Even with that silencer someone will hear the shot. And very likely my dying scream. You aren't getting out of this."

The woman laughed politely. "That's what you think tough guy. Anyway, I am not here to shoot you. I am here to help you."

"Well there are better ways to get that across than by breaking into someone's office and pointing guns at them."

She put the gun back on the desk and invited him to sit down, explaining.

"Pardon my paranoia but the last time I tried talking to someone from Mewni it ended pretty badly for both of us."

Roderick noticed that she had heaped a stack of chocolate bars on his desk. " _Well, now I know who the chocolate thief is,_ " he thought. Once he was comfortable she sat down on his desk and addressed him.

"I haven't been back on the scene for very long, but it seems that you have been making quite a few interesting moves Sir Roderick. Though I don't know wether it comes down to your ability to hide all of your preparations. Or Moon and River's incompetence in allowing you to do all this unmolested. It seems that you have the regular Mewnian military completely over a barrel, but I would like to ask. What do you plan to do about the Magical High Commission when you... get going?"

He replied. 

"I have a few ideas on that, I'm not too worried about them. If Ludo beat them down then I can probably come up with something. Lekhmet is dead, I know Hekapoo like the back of my hand. Rhombulus is a fucking idiot. Omnitraxus Prime though..."

Eclipsa scarfed down another bar, with a mouthful of chocolate and walnut she replied. "Yes, Omnitraxus is a rather difficult nut isn't he? Would you like me to help you crack him?"

From behind the desk she pulled out a box, showing him three items inside. A bolas, a candle snuffer and a crystal. Roderick asked, "what are these supposed to be?"

"Weapons created by me, on the behalf of a certain fucking idiot. Specifically made to take down the MHC."

"A certain idiot... Rhombulus...? Wait, if these are weapons specifically made to take down the MHC shouldn't there be six of them?"

Eclipsa snorted and explained.

"Rhombulus didn't make a weapon that would kill himself. I have modified the weapon he intended for Glossarick to be used on him and I am holding the weapons intended for Lekhmet and Reynaldo the Bald Pate for my personal use. You shouldn't need them. With these you should be able to sweep aside the MHC and take the throne of Mewni."

Connections fired in Roderick's head. A faint memory, this woman's cute little face had seemed so familiar. Then he remembered, his first day in Mewni. Mina Loveberry showed him around the castle and he had been quite impressed by some tapestries she had shown him.

"Oh no, 'Eclipsa, Queen of Mewni, to a mewman King was wed, but took a monster for her love and away from Mewni fled." 

She smiled and pointed at him with a handful of chocolate. Her smile was indescribably charming.

"Yes, I was wondering when you were going to figure that out."

Roderick asked in utter confusion.

"This makes no sense, took a monster for your love? I want to wipe them out! Why don't you want the throne for yourself? And how the bloody hell did you get these? Why could you possibly think that I could do anything to help you get... whatever it is you want?"

Eclipsa sighed and picked a rose from a bundle in a vase. As she sniffed it she asked.

"How do you know what I want?"

"I don't, I really don't, I'm completely baffled by your actions. If you would like to explain what your intentions are I would love to hear it."

Eclipsa smiled, "I know this won't mean much. But thank you for that. I have had so many people speculating about me, accusing me. That you are willing to let me say my piece... I can't thank you enough for that."

Eclipsa cleared her throat and continued.

"I have these weapons because I helped Rhombulus make them. These are part of the reason why I wound up sealed in crystal. He trumped up a bunch of charges, took advantage of my... Unpopular opinions towards monsters and locked me up once they were made. He had the resources, but not the talent to make these. Now I need to repay him for all the hospitality he has given me for these hundreds of years."

She put down the box and picked the pistol back up. She wasn't aiming it at Roderick, she was studying the curious human device. It fascinated her, earthling guns were such crude things back in her day. They had come so far since then.

"I tried to bring peace to Mewni, rather differently than you want to. I was punished for this in much the same way that you intend to punish Marco and Star. On the face of it I should be working with them. I should want you in a dungeon Sir Roderick. But, I tried to reason with King River, and that didn't work out so well. I know how they see me now, I know how they will treat me. It's been hundreds of years, but nothing has really changed. The Royal family are still a pack of hypocrites and the Magical High Commission is still the power behind the throne. I want justice agaisnt the MHC. On everyone who had a role in my being sealed in a crystal who is still alive. I want a trial and I want everything that happened to me and my family to become public knowledge."

"The other reason being... did you hear about the recent incident at St Olga's Academy?"

"Yes, Diaz was there to accept an award, he got ambushed by the previous headmistress, there was a scuffle. Princesses Ponyhead, Spiderbite and the former headmistress were killed."

"That former headmistress you mentioned... was my daughter."

"Oh my."

She put the pistol back down and continued.

"Yes, so, seeing this... Boy, Marco Diaz alive, let alone in a position of power is unacceptable. I know I can't ask you to do this, but if you can, please kill him at the first opportunity you have."

Roderick stood up and offered his hand. "Consider it done, I would expect any of my men to do the same if he had had killed anyone in my family. I'm sorry for your loss. You can keep the chocolate, with my warmest regards."

Eclipsa shook his hand. He loved her touch, it felt like something beyond electricity. Especially as he looked down at her elegant features. With a distinct... Heat to them.

He kissed her hand gently.

Eclipsa smiled down at him. It was oddly comforting to know that even if this man was a dog, he could be a good dog if the situation called for it. As much as she hated everything about this Sir Roderick really did remind her of her mother. People only remembered The Monster Carver's ruthlessness. But Solaria could be quite kind and diplomatic, off the battlefield. Eclipsa scooped up the candy and a rose then walked towards the secret escape tunnel that Roderick had in his study. As she opened it she whispered, "don't worry, our little secret." and vanished. The scent of the rooms cedar paneling lingering with her.

Roderick looked down at the items. He was going to need to test their efficacy first. But it wasn't like he didn't have experienced and talented magicians on staff. He was going to have to put a new lock on his escape tunnel. That invisible hand that earthling had told him about had become visible and given him a thumbs up. It was time to move ahead.

He opened the box where he normally kept his matched set of Dan Wesson 1911 pistols. Inside was the missing firing pin for his Eco. The box smelled of Eclipsa, of roses and chocolate.

He also noticed that, coincidentally enough, the box that Eclipsa had given him was the exact same size as his gun box. Just much more roughly hewn.

Roderick had a wife. None less that the legendary Mina Loveberry. They had been together for many years now. Loveberry and Roderick had much in common. But Roderick did have occasional friction with her over the fact that he was simply smarter than her.

Eclipsa was so much more than his wife could ever be. Mina was just ruthless, Eclipsa added cuteness and intelligence to that equation. Even if Eclipsa was doomed to be his enemy, she would be an enemy that he could respect. He couldn't ask anymore than that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title, but judged just too spoilery. 
> 
> Roderick and Eclipsa and... [whisper] Mina.
> 
> Or. 
> 
> Yeah, that's right! I just shipped Roderick Spode from Jeeves and Wooster with Mina Loveberry. 
> 
> Give it long enough and I might just offer you a logical explanation.


	17. Old age and treachery.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Princess Solaria, Hekapoo and Prince Tanith sit down and... Talk?
> 
> Also, a rowdy, raucous meeting at the Monsters hideout.

Prince Tanith sat down at the table in the great hall of Mewni Castle.

Solaria had ordered the inner keep of the castle cleared.

Her brother was off on yet another diplomatic mission. This one to a whole other planet, Trundelheim. Solaria had waited until he was off planet to have this meeting.

She had told half the palace guard to take the night off. The remaining half were all manning the walls with the orders to not come inside unless it was an emergency. The staff had been given similar orders.

Hekapoo sat down opposite Prince Tanith, they looked at each other anxiously as they waited for Solaria to come back.

Tanith kept trying to come up with something to say to the sorceress. But he just couldn't come up with anything that sounded appropriate. His anxiety growing with every passing second.

Hekapoo felt exasperated. She was tapping her fingers on the massive table wondering why she had agreed to anything like this. She hadn't been in a romantic relationship with anyone in three hundred years. And a relationship with a mortal? Now a relationship with two mortals?

This was getting ridiculous.

Hekapoo's relationships always ended in either sadness, or rage. Either the sadness of when her partner either died or broke up with her. Or the rage of when she broke up with them.

Made all the worse by her... Compulsions. Her innate desire to meddle with lower life forms may no longer have been expressed on a planetary scale anymore. But she still wanted to indulge on an interpersonal scale. So she had indulged. With a crown princess of Mewni. Possibly the craziest princess that Mewni had seen in memory.

And now that indulgence was spiraling into things that were insane even by her standards. Now she was going to have to do... something with the undeniably handsome, but rather nervous man sitting across the table from her.

Solaria entered, her hands wet from washing, announcing. "Sorry, there was an issue in the stables, since I had most of the castle staff go home for the night there was no one to stop a certain spirited horse from going nuts."

Tanith asked, "well, is it okay now?"

"Not really, it panicked, broke a leg, I had to put it down."

Solaria plunked the wand down on the table, a few drops of burnt blood still clung to it.

Hekapoo's eyes went wide, Prince Tanith shook his head and was about to say something when Solaria interrupted him.

"So, Hekapoo, Tanith, we all know why we are here... Right?"

Solaria said that last part in a remarkably sly tone.

Hekapoo asked, "well, it sounds like you want to iron out things between the three of us?"

Solaria smiled and nodded, then started staring at the prince.

He asked, "oh, you want me to say... Okay, um, obviously it would be best for both of our realms if Solaria and I were to be married. This would greatly strengthen our existing alliance. Buuuuut I don think that's what we are here... To talk... About, is it?"

Solaria and Hekapoo shook their heads in the negative.

Prince Tanith stammered.

"Um, okay, well it would probably look untoward if we had... Um, I'm sorry I still don't quite understand what is going on here? I mean we have a historical precedent of kings, sultans and chieftains having harems but... Am I going to be in a harem of a queen? Well, no, not even a queen, a princess. This is all very odd."

Solaria explained, "no, not a harem. For now it would just be you, me and Hekapoo here. But it's not just Hekapoo is it? Go ahead Hek, show him."

Two clones split off from the original, the prince smiled, almost involuntarily and said. "Um, yes, I'm familiar with Hekapoo's... Ability."

Solaria asked in as seductive a tone as she could manage, "so... Does this mean that you are okay with this arrangement?"

Tanith started sweating and replied, "well, I... I suppose I could, I don't know. Try it just once and see how things go."

Solaria smiled and turned to Hekapoo, asking, "well, how about you?"

The two clones folded back into the original. She put her fist on her chin and stated to the both of them. "You two are mortals, I am going to be around for a long time after you both are gone. You are aware of this and you want to go ahead?"

Solaria and Tanith simultaneously replied, "yes."

Solaria added, "why do you want to go ahead with this?"

Hekapoo tilted her head and replied, "oh I don't know. I suppose after all these millennia I want to try something different."

A predatory gleam emerged in Solaria's eyes, "something different eh? Okay, let's see if we can accommodate you then."

Solaria got up from the table and extended her hands to the two of them. They took Solaria's hands and followed her to her bedroom.

Solaria locked her door and breathed deeply. She wrapped her arms around Prince Tanith and kissed him, speaking softly she asked. "I hope you don't mind, but I kinda want to make Hekapoo a priority tonight. She just seems so lonely... And pretty, can you, just go along with whatever I ask?"

Prince Tanith asked nervously, "like what?"

As kindly as she could Solaria whispered, "just go with it." As she slipped off his tunic. She gestured for Hekapoo to start undressing as she gently slipped off Prince Tanith's clothing.

As more and more flesh became visible Hekapoo noticed a few rather insignificant spider-bites. Nothing that was a major turn off though.

Finally Solaria removed Prince Tanith's pants. Solaria smiled and wandered towards the bed, inviting Tanith to join her. 

As Hekapoo removed her socks the prince was thrown onto the bed. Solaria removed her jacket, revealing that her undershirt stained with.

"Eeww, horse blood!" The prince couldn't help but say.

Instead of unbuttoning her shirt Solaria tore the ragged, stained shirt clean off her body.

The Prince and Hekapoo's thoughts unwittingly became synchronized.

_"Oh crud, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into!?"_

Solaria let her pants fall to the floor and walked with utter confidence over to the bed where she sat down between the two of them. She passionately kissed the prince, then began delicately kissing Hekapoo while fondling the prince's cock.

She stood up and sat on the opposite side of Hekapoo and while she continued kissing, she invited the prince to begin kissing Hekapoo as well.

The prince nervously began kissing Hekapoo's face. He wasn't very good at it, so Hekapoo began to help him out. Showing him what she liked. As their tongues explored each other, Solaria began working down Hekapoo's neck.

" _Oh corn, I just can't get enough of these things_!" Solaria thought as she began to delicately work Hekapoo's magnificent breasts.

Solaria chose to play a part akin to a referee in this exchange. Holding back, content just to observe for a little while as her two lovers got used to each other. She knew that she didn't want to lose either of them. She had to see that the two of them would be comfortable with each other. It took a little while, but she started to see the rough edges of the interactions between the prince and the flame sorceress were smoothing off. 

After awhile Solaria realized that she just couldn't hold back any longer. She shoved Hekapoo and the prince back into her bed and knelt down on the floor. Devouring the flame sorceresses nethers. 

Hekapoo was still kissing the prince in the lips, soon though she let out a squeal in delight as she asked. 

"Who taught you how to do this!?" 

Solaria lifted her head up and replied, in an oddly detached tone.

"Rank hath its privileges. I'm just glad you don't have much hair down here. My ladies in waiting don't have snatches nearly as well groomed as yours, Hekapoo."

Solaria sighted the prince's engorged dick and tasted it. The prince recoiled somewhat, Solaria grabbed his right hand and interlaced their fingers. Looking him in the eye and smiling as much as she could as she devoured him.

Solaria sucked him to his full length and then stood up.

She licked her lips.

She guided the prince to stand up.

Then lied down on top on Hekapoo in a sixty nine position.

Then Solaria realized that this wasn't going to work as well as she thought it would. Solaria was 6 foot three, Hekapoo was barely over five feet

Solaria just shrugged and continued on. She had wanted this for years and she was going to get it.

Hekapoo had an idea what was about to happen. 

" _Oh no, no no no no! You do not get to turn me into your pet that easily, Princess. It's time you learned exactly who you are fucking with."_

Hekapoo split off two clones. 

The clones grabbed Solaria by her arms and pinned her to the bed. 

Hekapoo stood up and smiled in the prince's face as Solaria struggled to escape. Hekapoo asked him, "now, would you be so kind as to show Miss Butterfly the error of her ways?"

Prince Tanith asked in genuine confusion, "huh?"

Hekapoo tilted her head and explained, "come on, fuck her!"

The prince looked down.

Solaria looked up.

Solaria struggled one more time. The clones were apparently stronger than she was. Solaria laughed, she laughed at the fact that Hekapoo had seen right through her and had led her into her own trap. She made a kissy face at Hekapoo and Tanith and stated in a rather creepy tone. "Well come on, I'm not often going to be in this position. You might as well have some fun with it." 

The prince entered the princess, moments later Hekapoo began rubbing Solaria's clit very gently.

Hekapoo had not used this knowledge in a very long time. But it all came back to her quickly. 

Pleasure. 

Overwhelming pleasure. 

Tinkering with biology, using magic. To induce in mortals an unquenchable lust for lust. 

Of course since Solaria was already a woman of prodigious appetites Hekapoo didn't feel bad about this at all. 

The prince drove faster. His rhythm becoming synchronized with Hekapoo's. As he drove faster, she drove faster. 

Solaria stopped resisting the clones and began to cry out in pleasure. Hekapoo was proving to be just as clever and talented as she had imagined. 

The thought went flying away as Solaria surrendered as she had never done before. 

She was so glad the wand was nowhere in sight. 

She could see it. 

The faint twinkling of what she had been looking forward to for months now. Ever since she had read about it. The power mad princess could see the gate to a new realm of might.

Then she looked up. She could see that the prince wasn't going to make it much further. This was enough for now. He had to be trained, molded. He had to learn how to master his cock as opposed to... What he was doing right now. In all honesty Solaria was pleased that the prince had been able to get her this far. 

He had help. 

Solaria clacked her teeth shut. Hekapoo involuntarily gave Solaria one more squeeze. The princess and the prince came together. 

Prince Tanith exhaled and collapsed onto the bed. Within moments he appeared to be unconscious. 

The two clones poofed out of existence. The real Hekapoo knelt down. Her and Solaria's heads touching. Hekapoo kissed her kindly. Solaria delicately ran her hand through Hekapoo's hair and smiled in satisfaction. 

Hekapoo shook her head in amazement. Hekapoo asked, "Solaria, What are you trying to do?" 

Solaria felt inside herself. Savoring the warm wetness of the mixing of fluids. She explained, "all of the princesses that came before me seem like a bunch of goody two shoes. Mewni is growing, to continue this we are going to need to know how to fight and how to fuck. I have decided to make both my main priority. I have dedicated months of my time towards becoming a greater fighter, and a better lover."

Solaira whispered in the prince's ear. 

"And I expect to hold both of you to a higher standard. I know tonight seemed a little... Extreme, for both of you, but I'm only going to demand more of you two in the future."

The prince's eyes snapped open. 

Solaria finished. "Of course I could just dump one or both of you. Your decision."

Prince Tanith held up his left hand, breathlessly stating. "I am your man, my queen."

Solaria extended her right hand, intertwining their fingers.

Hekapoo stretched out her right hand and grasped both of their intertwined fingers, announcing. "It would look untoward if an immortal couldn't keep up with mortals. Besides, I'm not done with you yet." 

 

 

Meanwhile at Castle Alvarius.

Eosin Batwin a rich and powerful monster was trying to get an uncontrollable scene under control.

"Listen everyone, listen! I know that you are all very upset about what happened to Stone Hexapoda, I am too. But he knew the risks of facing Solaria alone and did so anyway. What... what you are discussing is madness! We have lived in an admittedly harsh peace for the past eighty years. The last time any of us tried rebelling Queen Skywynne tore those responsible to pieces. And the..."

Interrupted by a handful of thrown poop.

"Really?! Poop? You're flinging poop!? really classy Rakflong! As I was saying, Solaria is crazier than Skywynne. She obviously wants an excuse to start a war. This is no time to indulge her! If a war breaks out I just don't see how we can win and even if we were somehow able to win, what would it cost us? It wouldn't just cost us our blood, it would cost us our children's blood as well. The Mewnians..."

The crowd of monsters started roaring in disapproval.

"The Mewnians will never forgive us! They will not stop until we are exterminated entirely! Our only hope... Our only hope! Is to continue the peace. Someday we will be able to exist as true equals with the mewmans."

A chorus of boos and a variety of thrown objects accompanied Batwin's departure from the lectern.

Seth the Septarian approached the lectern.

"Okay first of all, everyone calm the fuck down!"

The crowd instantly went silent.

"Now, clearly, we would not be here tonight if the peace of the past eighty years was sssssatisfactory. The mewmanssssss may not have engaged in any pogroms against us, but their oppressssssion continues. Every day they take more and more of our lands, forcing us deeper into the Forest of Certain Death. We combined our efforts to construct this castle for the explicit purpose of stemming further Mewman penetration into our remaining lands. This peace was nothing more than a chance for both sides to rest and rearm. And luckily enough we have managed to rearm with more and better weapons than the mewmans. We dedicated all of our spare resources to rearmament while the Mewnians spent theirs on luxuries and corn. How long will thisssss last? Batwin, you said it yoursssssself, Solaria is crazier than any of her recent predecessors. And she hasssss the wand. As soon as she takessss power she will almost certainly begin a military buildup that we will never be able to catch up withhhhh. The mewmans have no ressssspect for any of us. They do not believe that we have a culture, a society. If the mewmans continue to presssss us we will go extinct. Our only option is to strike now, hard and fast. We will exterminate the excess mewmans, push them back to their castle and force them to come to a peace that we will be amenable to. Perhaps we could even drive them all the way back to wherever the fuck they came from!"

Wild applause erupted from the audience. Seth stepped down from the lectern.

Giordano Alvarius strode towards the lectern. He began.

"Okay, we have heard from both sides... And as much as it pains me to say, right now I have to go with Batwin. Let's face it, we have fought the mewmans before and and they have an advantage that we simply cannot check. No matter how many weapons we stockpile, no matter how bravely we fight, they have magic and we don't. We have never been able to check this advantage and despite everything we have accomplished here I don't see how we have anything near parity with the wand."

He held up his dimensional scissors.

"I dedicated twenty years of my life to obtaining these scissors. And with the knowledge I have gleaned from other realms we built this castle and our current stockpile of weapons. I have searched hundreds of dimensions and I haven't found anything that can check the power of the wand. As soon as we can I will gladly authorize my militia, my castle and all of my fortune to a glorious war with the filthy mewmans. But until then we must..."

More boos, they didn't fling anything at Giordano. Lest they invite the wrath of his monster militia.

"We must continue to smile and go along until we find something that can match the power of the wand!"

The hall was a riot of boos as Giordano left the stage.

Some other monster took the lectern to discuss a minor issue with the monster's water supply. With war not being discussed further most of the monsters began filing out of the great hall. Seth was going to have a word with Batwin when a cloaked figure tapped him on the shoulder.

He was tall, not Mewman, but he didn't quite look like any monster he had ever seen. He was fuzzy, yet handsome.

"Sssso, who are you?" Seth asked.

"The last guy was talking about something to check the power of the wand. What do you think that might be?"

Seth replied. "Well, the obvious answer would be a wand controlled by monsters. But sssssuch a thing doesn't seem to exist anywhere Giordano looked. Besssssides, Zzzzzumphq the Blargwart stole the wand from Queen Soupina. All it did was make him even crazier than she was. And that crazzzzzzy bastard was already pretty loopy to begin with. I don't know, but there's got to be ssssssomething that can give us the upper hand."

The hooded figure observed, "what about immortality?"

Seth laughed, "immortality? Ha! Oh yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Solaria uses the wand as a sssssword and blaster. Immortality would just mean that you would spend eternity in pieces."

"Mmm, not necessarily. Immortality with a healing factor, the ability to regrow limbs. She could hack and slash and blast and your troops would keep on coming."

Seth looked cockeyed and asked, "okay, sssssssso who the hell are you and what do you want?"

He removed his cloak from around his head, "listen, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm an entity and I need your help to get something from Hekapoo. Hekapoo is closely tied with the Mewnian royal family. Pressure on them is pressure on her. In exchange for you pressing the Mewnians I will give you the ability to permanently upend the balance of power in Mewni forever."

Seth took a step back, "an entity!? I wassssss told that you were all dead, long dead. That you all died long before either the monster or Mewman racesssss emerged. Whatsssss your name... Entity?"

"My name is Tyhjiö."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.  
> David Mamet
> 
> Who is of course the father of Zosia Mamet, the voice actress of the character of Hekapoo.


	18. Double barreled doomsday.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The effective beginning of the conflict between Sir Roderick Spode and Star Butterfly.

Once Bob was done in the bathroom he noticed the sound of dozens of people moving very quickly around him. He grabbed a young woman with red hair, green eyes and freckles who was hastily putting on a suit of armor and asked.

"What's going on?"

She explained.

"Sir Roderick just showed up outside with an army!"

While the squire ran off towards her post Bob hustled back to his room. He threw open the door to his and Janna's room and started grabbing his weapons. Janna asked.

"Whoa, what's going on? Is Tom going nuts?"

"No, worse, Sir Roderick is here and it sounds like he is loaded for bear."

Janna asked in an incredulous tone, "what?"

As Bob took off his pajamas Janna's eyes went wide. She didn't know what to stare at. His alarmingly muscular body or the huge handgun he had just taken out of one of his bags.

Bob noticed Janna looking at the pistol in terror. He explained, "B&T USW personal defense weapon. Developed for police work. Allows rifle like accuracy in a handgun sized package. With the stock extended I can hit a man sized target at a hundred yards. Borrowed it from my fathers Israeli friend. There's a police department near Echo Creek that is thinking about issuing these and they wanted him to see if they had any bugs."

After a moments silence on Janna's part he added, "come on, you didn't think I was going to go on an adventure in another dimension without bringing a weapon did you?"

Janna stated. "That cannot be legal."

"In California? For anyone but a cop? Ha! No chance in hell! Luckily we aren't in California anymore."

Bob was now dressed in a somewhat rumpled, but very functional army surplus uniform. Before she could ask anymore the door flew open.

Tom leaned in and asked, "hey, you guys hearing about thi... Wow."

Tom got a good look at Bob's uniform and gear, Bob holstered his USW and replied, "yeah we heard. So, Miss Ordonia, Demon Prince, shall we go see what this traitor wants?"

Tom, Bob and Janna walked out to where most of the castle residents were gathering. A large balcony that overlooked a town square.

The square was almost completely full of Sir Roderick's troops. Bob looked around. On the balcony were Hekapoo, Rhombulus and Omnitraxus prime. Along with Marco and every knight of Mewni in the castle and most of their pages. As he stared into the crowd of soldiers Bob asked Tom, "hey, can you point out this Roderick fellow to me?"

Tom pointed to the man in shining rust blued, engraved armor marching through the crowd.

Bob's jaw dropped. He couldn't speak, but he could think.

_"No!"_

_"No it can't be."_

_"It's impossible!"_

_"He is a fictional character! A fictional character!"_

Roderick's army was very heavily armed. Mostly with earthling weapons, but also with a smattering of magical weapons. Bob identified most of the guns as simple submachine guns and bolt action rifles. With the occasional smattering of grenades, grenade launchers, mortars and 84mm Carl Gustav antitank launchers.

And an extremely large pair of speakers for some reason.

As confident as he had been when he had packed the USW. Now it felt about as useful a squirt gun against all this. Bob had brought a pair of noise canceling headphones. He brought them everywhere he traveled. He had originally bought them to protect his hearing while shooting but he had come to depend on them to shut out distractions in noisy environments. He knew that things were about to get very noisy very soon.

But they were not attacking, not yet. And Marco knew why. The Magical High Commission was backing him up. For all the firepower assembled here one of them could take out everything and everyone Roderick had within moments. Star was rushing back to Mewni, she would be here any moment. With the power of the wand she could deal with this rabble all by herself. 

Sir Roderick Spode, knight-general of the realm of Mewni. Currently wanted by the crown walked up to the last open area in the square. Short of a hastily dug trench and other emergency fortifications around Mewni castle. Inside the trench were a smattering of monsters who had fled to the castle for safety and were now preparing to defend it. Roderick shouted.

"I want to talk, Diaz, man to man. I don't know how much experience you had with war but I have learned from firsthand experience that it can be quite unpleasant. The people are scared, Diaz. How about we see if we can avoid any unpleasant accidents today?"

Marco walked out onto a balcony and shouted down to Roderick.

"Alright, I'm here, Spode. What do you want to talk about?"

"Not just you Diaz, I want to talk to the MHC as well. I know they are up there."

Omnitraxus Prime came forth. Followed by Hekapoo and Rhombulus. Backed up by a force of a dozen loyalist Knights. All but Omnitraxus stood confidently on the edge of the balcony. Omnitraxus Prime expanded to a size big enough to tower over every one of Roderick's troops. Just small enough though for them to see all of what he was. In a voice that seemed to shake reality itself he boomed.

"Here we are Roderick. So, what do you want to talk about little man?!"

Roderick smiled, not his trademark smile of rage and joy that he got just before a fight. This was something much more sincere; he pulled a parchment from a pouch on his belt.

"Under the authority of the Mewnian people, and the peoples of the allied realms. I, Sir Roderick Spode do hereby place you, Marco Diaz under arrest for making war, as a foreign infiltrator, on the Mewnian people. We also place Queen Star Butterfly under arrest, and any of her compatriots from Mewni for high treason. Anyone from Earth or any other unallied realms will be detained for trial. By this proclamation we declare your government to be corrupt, incompetent and treasonous. You have released and enfranchised monsters who are the ancient and eternal enemies of the Mewnian people. You have brought economic ruin and dependency on foreign powers. There's a whole bunch of other complaints, but those can wait."

Marco replied.

"And if I tell you to go away and take your army with you?"

Sir Roderick cleared his throat dramatically and continued speaking.

"Then we shall have to levy war against you and everyone else who stands in our way. This is your last chance Diaz. Surrender peacefully or this will get very very ugly. You aren't on Earth anymore, boy!"

Loyalist Knights unsheathed their blades. Monsters growled and clutched their spears and staffs tighter in anticipation. Hekapoo split her scissors, Rhombulus aimed his arms at the rebellious army.

The army of Roderick remained motionless. Not a one of them so much as touched their weapons.

Omnitraxus reduced himself in size, just enough so he could face Roderick. He boomed.

"And this is your last chance Sir Roderick, order your thugs to disperse, or else!"

Roderick sighed and snapped his fingers. "Stevens! My box please."

A man emerged from the ranks of troops. Bob took one look at him and concluded that he was a human from Earth. Body armor, grenades and he was carrying an FN SCAR. A much rarer and expensive weapon that most of the Mewnian troops had. The mercenary was carrying a beautiful wooden box which he presented dramatically to Roderick.

Roderick took a deep sniff of the top of the box and announced in a conversational tone to Omnitraxus.

"Ah, cedar wood, it might be my favorite wood. I am told you don't like cedar very much, Prime. That its one of your few weaknesses, you can't see through it, like you can see everything else. You and the Magical High Commission really shouldn't involve yourselves in the petty squabbles of mere mortals. This is your last chance to leave this fight to those who have earned it."

Rhombulus gasped, it couldn't be, it just couldn't be! No it really couldn't be! It wasn't even the same box! This one was polished to a glistening shine. Besides he had destroyed the weapons. No, there was no way that this lunatic could have them. It was impossible for at least two more reasons he could think of. If he hadn't destroyed the weapons then Eclipsa had them, and if Eclipsa had them there would be no way she would share them with this monster hating bigoted asshole.

Omnitraxus looked down and replied, "are you crazy? Just because I can't see through it do you think it can hurt me? How could a little box possibly have any effect on me?"

Sir Roderick sighed and explained.

"No, not the box, what's inside the box you fool. Farewell Omnitraxus Prime. You will be missed."

Roderick took out a bolas. Before anyone could react he had thrown it towards the swords that made up Omnitraxus's horns. Rhombulus screamed, "no! Omnitraxus! Get out of here!"

Even if the warning had come in time Omnitraxus wouldn't have fled. He was too curious about what these things were to even think about leaving. As the bolas string wrapped around one of his swords, it shattered. The rest of the swords disconnected from each other and fell around him. Rhombulus screamed again, "don't fight it!"

The bolas string began interacting with the swords to form a structure around Omnitraxus. A tesseract structure. He resisted the formation of the container as well as he could. But the more he fought, the faster the tesseract assembled. It was completed in an instant.

Omnitraxus Prime hit the tesseract with everything he had. Almost enough power to light off the existence of another universe. But all this did was make it stronger. In less than a minute it had reduced Omnitraxus in size from slightly bigger than a Mewnian battleship to slightly smaller than the crystal ball that others used to communicate with him.

The laws of physics began to break down around Omnitraxus Prime. Everything he knew was failing before his very eyes. The only force outside the tesseract that was still affecting him was gravity, so he fell. Roderick whipped out his pair of dimensional scissors. Opening up a dimensional right below the falling Prime. The trapped Omnitraxus fell into the portal, which led to a spot on the far distant edge of the known multiverse.

Three minutes after passing through the portal. The tesseract had reduced Omnitraxus Prime to a size smaller than a single atom.

All his power, all his knowledge, it had to go somewhere.

It exploded like a miniature Big Bang.

His last thought was.

"How?"

The loyalists stood on the castle ramparts, silent, jaws hanging loose, eyes wide open. This... Man had just killed what many would consider a God with no more effort than sinking a free throw in basketball. Roderick zipped the portal closed before the huge blast shockwave came screaming out of it and looked back up at the ramparts. Still holding his pair of dimensional scissors. He pointed to them and shouted.

"Hekapoo, daaaaahling! I know we have had some disagreements as of late. But if you want these back then you can come and take them from me, if you please. I would just love to... Please you one more time."

Hekapoo was about to leap into action. As complex as a relationship as they had Spode had to pay for killing Omnitraxus. But before she could jump Rhombulus tackled her and forced her back. All the way to the wall behind the balcony. He screamed.

"Hekapoo, run, run now. Run as far from here as you can and don't come back here until I say it's safe!"

She asked an inevitable question.

"What? Why!?"

"If you have ever trusted me, you start running and you don't stop until you hit the edge of the universe and stay there! He has a weapon that can kill you. He got it from Eclipsa, I don't have time to explain how. Now run dammit! Run before it's too late!"

Hekapoo wasn't normally one to run from a battle. But if Rhombulus was telling the truth and given what she he just seen happen to Omnitraxus she had no reason to doubt it. The reason why Star wasn't here was because after they had put Marco to bed last night Hekapoo had told Star to go and find Eclipsa. Hekapoo had hoped that finding Eclipsa and beginning a negotiation would allow them to get ahead of her. 

No such luck it would seem. 

And now that she was apparently working with Sir Roderick. 

And they had weapons that could kill them. 

Hekapoo bolted, leaving a very confused Marco. Rhombulus turned towards Roderick. With as much of a look of grim determination as his crystal face would allow. He walked towards the edge of the balcony. Yelling in a grimly determined voice.

"Okay you son of a bitch. I may have been stupid enough to make those weapons. But even I wasn't stupid enough to make one that would work on me. Let's go!"

Roderick asked in a sarcastic tone. "So does this mean that you are going to seal me in a crystal like you did all those monsters?"

Rhombulus leapt to a spot about twenty feet in front of Roderick, Rhombulus roared. "No, I don't do that to anyone crazy enough to kill an MHC member. I am going to kill you. I'm going to rip you to pieces with my bare jaws. Then I am going to seal your whole damn army in crystal and drop them into a star. I am not keeping any of you idiots around. I can't afford to make that mistake again."

Roderick carefully placed the scissors in the box and replied. "No, you can't, can you? And neither can I."

He took another item out of the box. It was a crystal. Rhombulus asked, "and what do you plan on doing with that? That was made for Glossarick, it won't work on me!"

"Are you sure about that? You are related to him aren't you?"

Rhombulus stopped in his tracks. He was distracted. From a starting point within the crystal, infinity was stretching out before him. The crystal was reflecting the refractions of light emerging from his own prism. A feedback loop that his mind could not handle. He couldn't see anything except the fabric of the universe. The gem had adjusted to his light, not Glossaricks... Somehow. He couldn't see the army anymore, he couldn't see Roderick.

Then he realized. 

He could see into the box. 

When he burned the weapons there had been one missing. The weapon made for Reynaldo the Bald Pate. The wooden dagger intended for him had not been in the box. Eclipsa must have been unable to find an effective substitute amongst the various prototypes and other items in his home. Be should have known, there and then that Eclipsa or someone had stolen the weapons. 

But by then it was too late. The crystal had caused an infinite recursion in his thoughts. 

_"Who is Roderick? Who was Glossarick? Why am I here and what am I doing?"_

Roderick snapped his fingers, "Ozi, Milstimar. Do your thing!"

Rhombulus's hands spoke over each other. "Attack, fight, walk, do something dammit! He is distracting you! Just get us closer and we can..."

Their words were drowned out by the music of a pair of flutists. They were not of Mewni. They were an obscure, semi-legendary race, the Vorlite. The best musicians and dancers in the universe. Their music and dances were inherently hypnotic. Their ability to control other life forms with their art was considered to be so dangerous that what few of them still existed were hunted for rich bounties through the multiverse. Their song was driving Roderick's army into a fury backed up with perfect confidence and faith in their actions. With their motions they charmed Rhombulus's arms.

Behind the Vorlite musicians came two Knights in full armor with swords drawn, visors down, earplugs in. They could barely see the Vorlites, they could barely hear their music. Roderick shouted to them, "alright remember, simultaneously men! you must cut them both at the same time. On the count of T, one, two."

"Tttttttthree."

The Knights chopped off Rhombulus's arms. They didn't even manage to cry out as they fell to the ground. They were still hypnotized as they passed on. Rhombulus just continued to stand there. So distracted by the crystal that he didn't even notice that he was armless.

In time the reflections would power the feedback loop to the point where it overheated. Sterilizing the life out of every fragment of Rhombulus's crystal structure. But Roderick didn't have the patience to wait around for the next hour. He handed the increasingly warm crystal to one of his lieutenants. Who continued to hold it up, enchanting the last Magical High Commissioner left on Mewni. Roderick started dancing and clapping along to the music of his Vorlite flautists. He danced in near synchronicity with them, as much as his armor and much less flexible anatomy would allow. He was dancing towards the paralyzed Rhombulus. As he clapped and whistled he shouted.

"Stevens... let's rock!"

The earthling took a small remote out of the cedar box and clicked on the giant speakers. A full orchestral backing to the music of the Vorlite thundered through the city. Driving everyone who heard it into an ever deeper psychotic rage.

Roderick stopped clapping, but he kept dancing as he lifted his Benelli Nova Tactical 12 gauge shotgun from its sling around his chest. Still wiggling sinuously he sighted in on Rhombulus's head at point blank range. Before he pulled the trigger he stated, at a tone just loud enough for Rhombulus to be the only one who could hear over the music.

_"You deserve this and you know it. Thanks for the toys you hothead."_

A 45 caliber sabot slug made of the densest and toughest nickel-steel alloy that Roderick's money could buy flew from the shotgun. Punching clean through Rhombulus's head, shattering it into a million pieces.

Roderick stitched Rhombulus down his midsection with three more slugs. The crystal parts of him shattered, the flesh parts exploded. His last thought was.

_"Hekapoo, Omnitraxus, everyone! I'm so sorry!"_

As the remains of Rhombulus exploded all over the ground before Mewni castle Roderick was almost done dancing. It didn't make any sense to him, he had inured himself to the hypnotism of the Vorlite. He didn't like dancing. What he didn't understand was that it wasn't the music that was making him dance. It was his overwhelming joy. After so many years of hard work he was achieving his ultimate goal. To secure Mewni against all outside threats.

He was simply so overwhelmed with joy that he couldn't stop himself from dancing.

He shifted the aim of his shotgun upwards, strait at Marco Diaz's head. He had one last promise to fulfill.

Before the shots rang out the hypnotic music was briefly drowned out by the sound of weapons charging en masse. This provided enough of a distraction for the Squire to tackle Marco to the floor of the balcony. Saving him from, what she knew was about to be; an awful lot of incoming fire.

Higgs wasn't quite fast enough. One of Roderick's slugs hit her square in the center of her spine. The slug was designed to punch through things, including the finest metal armor. The slug made it through a brick before it hit her armor. Slowing it down just enough for it not to go all the way through her armor. Bouncing around inside her cuirass, turning it into a bullet powered blender. Higgs was dead before she could finish falling on top of Marco.

Marco had never liked Higgs and Higgs had truly detested Marco. Now he would have her dying face engraved on his minds eye for the rest of his life. 

On the fire of their leader the rest of Roderick's forces attacked. While he shucked fresh shells into his Benelli almost every one of his men opened up on their designated targets. The sheer mass of lead and explosives flying through the air killed most of the loyalist forces within moments. Blood, bone and flesh exploded all over the walls of Mewni castle in a literal storm of steel.

Tom shouted, "Marco, Janna, Bob. Get out of here right now."

Janna asked why.

Tom just looked at them with his eyes on fire and shouted, "go now!"

Hundreds of monsters ran from the the trench hurriedly dug around the castle. They ran into a wall of metal. Marco realized very quickly that there was nothing he could do here. All that heroism that those monsters were paying out so dearly was buying time for him to save as many lives as he could, he had to evacuate. He ran into the castle, ducking under the disintegrating walls of the balcony.

Tom stepped into the storm of steel. He was going to incinerate Spode. The bullets struck him and around him. They didn't bother him much. Earthling weapons were famously useless on demons. He just needed to get one clear shot at Spode.

He stood on the edge of the balcony. The walls disintegrating around him and aimed at Spode.

Spode was also aiming at him.

Spode had dropped his shotgun and transitioned to his pistol. Which happened to be loaded with 45 caliber bullets created by an entity not unknown to the Demon Prince. Sir Roderick had gone to the religious order responsible for Tom's attempted demoncisim and asked if it were possible to create a bullet which could kill a demon. The high priest of the order said that while it was impossible for such a weapon to kill a demon entirely, it's spirit would always return to whatever hell from whence it came. It was however possible to create a bullet which would kill the body that said demons spirit occupied.

The Vorlite musicians changed their tune once again. Something much softer and sweeter now.

Tom couldn't move. The music was just too beautiful. He hesitated just long enough for Sir Roderick to take careful aim at the Demon Princes chest and fired.

Amidst the barrage of bullets striking him Tom didn't even notice the impact at first.

He just felt cold.

Profoundly cold.

He looked down to see that he was gravely wounded.

Another one of Roderick's bullets hit, this one in his shoulder, then another in his hip. Tom groaned and fell over backwards behind what remained of the parapet wall.

The next thing he knew he was being dragged, by Bob. Tom coughed out some blood and asked what was going on.

"Sound cancelling headphones, the music can't affect me."

Tom stated, "no, I told you to run!"

Bob replied, "hey, I would feel like a complete asshole if I left you behind."

Bob dragged the bleeding Tom to where Marco and Janna were standing. Marco drew his dimensional scissors but before he could make a portal another portal opened in the wall next to him. Star stepped out and asked, "what's going on?"

Before Star got an answer she was propelled back through the portal. Thrown back to where she had just been by the living body of Janna Ordonia. Marco had thrown her into the portal. He looked at Tom and explained, "demons can't go through dimensional portals. Tom is going to summon his carriage and you are going to have to carry him to it."

Bob blinked and looked down, Tom had rung a small bell and within moments a carriage drawn by a dead horse had materialized outside the nearest window. Bob threw the wounded Prince into the carriage and looked back to Marco.

"Well, come on!" Marco gestured.

"No, I think I want to stay with Tom. I need to make sure he is okay." Bob replied.

The gunshots were getting closer, Marco snapped. "Bob, you do realize that if you get in that carriage the next stop is Mewnian hell!?"

Bob bit his lip, this was the stupidest thing he had ever done and he knew it. But he replied, "alright. But I still want to make sure Tom is safe."

Marco sighed and tossed Bob a communications mirror, explaining. "When we figure out what to do next I will call you on that. Now get out of here!"

Bob leapt into the carriage.

Marco stepped through the portal, sealing it behind him.

Dozens of mewmans and hundreds of monsters died in the battle, but not all of them. Twenty were captured. One of them was Yevgeny Bulgolyubov. AKA Buffrog, Hero of the Caphilly mine incident. Friend of Queen Star. Monster expert pro tem of the kingdom of Mewni. Despite having led the counterattack he had survived. Shot three times, he was in incredible pain.

He knew he wasn't going to last very long though. He was losing too much blood.

Some of the monsters were crying, others tried to look stoic. They were all in pain and afraid as they faced the crowd of Mewmans who had hated them for so long. A few whimpered some variation of the word.

"Mama."

The rest were silent.

As his men secured the castle. The occasional gunshot and groan announcing another knight or loyalist perishing. Roderick's soldiers lined up to execute the wounded monsters. When Roderick saw this he shouted.

"Whoa, hold it, hold it! What do you think you are doing?!"

A corporal replied, "our jobs. This is the way we have dealt with monsters since the time of Solaria."

Sir Roderick sighed and announced. "Just tie them up and don't execute them, alright! We need them alive."

"Why!?" Another soldier asked.

Roderick didn't want to give the real reason. " _Because the only reason we won here today was because a damn monster lover gave us what we needed to win and I really don't want to piss her off_." So he improvised.

"We need them to tell us where the queen went."

The same corporal as before asked, "really? You think this lot of freaks have any idea where she went? Are you going soft on us ol Sir Spode?"

Sir Roderick could see things getting out of hand. He had to get things under control quick. He quietly spoke to the corporal.

"You defy my orders again I'll have you strung up for a dozen lashes. Don't question my orders little man, follow them!"

Yevgeny Bulgolyubov decided that his last words had to be shared. This was a thought that couldn't die with him. He hoped that someone, anyone in the crowd of civilians milling around would be able to tell the truth of what happened here to his tadpoles. He had to be strong for them, since he had met them he had been fighting for them to inherit a better world than this. They were all he could think about. He had so hoped that if he was strong for them that that they would grow into beings that could be even stronger than he was. In a Mewni at peace. He saw someone he recognized amongst the civilians, it was the idiot Ruberiot. He was crying his eyes out, the Mewman civilians were all crying.

Yevgeny realized that they were sorry, the Mewmans civilians, mostly castle staff, were genuinely sorry about all this.

Yevgeny roared out the words, "this doesn't end here! This doesn't end... Here."

He could have sworn that he felt his heart stop.

Sir Roderick couldn't help but add one last remark as the light went out in Buffrogs eyes.

"Well, for you it does. Gather the other dead monsters in the square and have their bodies burned."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been waiting a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time to post this chapter. Hope you like it. :)


	19. To hell with all of you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where else would this crew flee to after a massive crisis in Mewni?

The carriage was rocking back and forth.

Something told Bob that this was going to be a short trip. He wished it could have been longer.

Perhaps sixty years, or more?

Bob tried to take the bad with the good in his religious practices. As such he had studied the concept of hell intently. While he had come to the conclusion that the concept was, in the truest sense of the word, a necessary evil he had never had much of a desire to visit the place.

Bob looked down at the badly wounded demon Prince.

The sight of him was bad enough. His inner demons were leaking out of him. Everywhere the golden, purifying magic was flowing was causing the flow of entities leaving his body to increase.

They shot out of him and then out cracks in the door of the carriage. Evidently they couldn't wait to rejoin the inferno.

An unnerving glow lit the carriage.  

Bob could smell the sulphur.

The carriage rattled to a halt.

Bob nervously placed one hand on his pistol and the other hand on the door. A voice inside him asked calmly, "and what do you plan to do against the armies of hell with that? Annoy them?"

He let go of the pistol.

As soon as he opened the door demons that appeared to be dressed as nurses rushed into the carriage and carried Tom away. Moments later a dozen hulking creatures with spears had surrounded the carriage.

Bob threw his hands up.

A voice spoke, "wait, no don't do anything he is with the Butterflies."

Much to Bob's surprise a man wearing a suit emerged from behind the monstrous demons. He extended a hand and asked, "Bob, right? I'm Dave, Tom's father, come with me please."

Bob asked, "how do you know my name?"

"A few of the people who saw the battle wound up down here. They told us everything, now come on."

Bob asked, "um, actually, if you don't mind can you just get this carriage to take me back to Mewni?"

Dave replied in an exasperated tone.

"Without a demon telling it where to go the horse will simply take you back to where it came. Which would probably be a battlefield. Listen, you aren't supposed to be here, I know that. But I won't be able to get you out of here until we iron out what's happening in the rest of the multiverse. Trust me, you are safer with me than with these guys."

Bob took another look at the heavily armed demons and asked, "mind if I keep my weapons?"

Dave replied nonchalantly, "yeah, sure, earthling guns have no power here anyway. Now come with me please."

Bob put his hands down and started walking behind Dave Lucitor. Following him into his families castle.

 

 

Planet Thirty H's was a mistake, on a galactic level. It was a planet which shouldn't have existed. It was one of a few places in the multiverse where dimensional portals formed and dissolved naturally. As a result of this all sorts of things were constantly wandering on and off the planet from who knows where.

This and the handful of other places where portals formed and dissolved were places where the MHC had no power. They simply couldn't make their magics work reliably here. All that they could do was visit and try to keep the anomalies from spreading too far.

Thirty Hs was the most metal planet in the known multiverse, in every possible sense of the word. The planet was mostly made up of iron and other heavy metal ores. Gravity there was 1.347456 that of Earth; gravity on Mewni and Earth was already considered preposterously high by most races in the multiverse.

Why would anyone willingly come to this place? Two reasons. One, it was a perfect place to hide at least in in theory. In practice it wasn't all that good a hideout because 23% of the planets "permanent" population was made up of bounty hunters, or people otherwise associated with the bounty hunting business.

The other reason was sandwiches. Thirty Hs was home to four of the ten best sandwich makers in the known multiverse. Using the naturally forming portals the sandwich makers were able to obtain the finest ingredients that could be found in multiple dimensions to create meals that would send you to heaven.

If you could endure the hell that was all around you.

A strange law of the multiverse. The deliciousness of a sandwich arises proportionately with the amount of danger associated with obtaining it. Where else could you pay a higher price than a place like Thirty Hs? Where your life, sanity, your very soul was at risk.

Star had been to Thirty Hs before. When she was thirteen. You may ask, what lunatic would take a thirteen year old girl, without any defenses more effective than an axe, to a place like Thirty Hs? Why Tom Lucitor of course! He had intended that he would fight and defeat the hordes of Thirty Hs to show off his might to Star.

Many beings came to Thirty Hs to show off their abilities. This was a world with a long and proud tradition of breaking the haughty.

The mighty demon Prince of Mewnian Hell had not counted on there being creatures that could neutralize and trump both his intellect and his powers dwelling on Thirty Hs. The demon Prince came close to dying nine times over the course of a mere three hours on Thirty Hs. His powers were nothing compared to creatures like the sky kraken Ulllllllioooomph. Or the ravenous survivors of the million Surf Ninja army that roamed the land after their failed attempt to conquer this planet and use it as a staging ground for their planned multidimensional war.

Even the mighty demon Prince couldn't survive an attack of ten thousand psychotic, starving, utterly desperate and ruthless Surf Ninjas.

The only thing that saved him was Star Butterfly's politeness and diplomacy. Begging for forgiveness from entities of insane power and hunger. They took pity on the little girl. So stupid to follow her boyfriend to Thirty Hs. The experience had been so profoundly humiliating for Star that it had been the final straw for their relationship.

Star had arrived with a dozen Hekaclones on Thirty H's last night, investigating a report that Eclipsa had been sighted there. As it happened it wasn't Eclipsa. It was just a sorceress who bore a slight physical resemblance to her who had come to the planet as part of her studies. A bounty hunter had already caught the Eclipsa doppelgänger. Star took one look at her and let her go. 

However, shortly after this the dozen hekaclones had vanished for no apparent reason. Star tried to call Hekapoo on her mirror. When there had been no response from her or Marco, Star cut a portal back to Mewni.

Marco had shoved Star back through that portal. As the rest of them poured through the portal Marco asked Star for a place where she could sit down.

She led them back to her 'staging point' on Thirty H's. A sandwich shop called, Nectar of the Gods.

Marco sat Star down and briefed her.

When Star found out that her families castle had been captured she got rather upset. When he told her that Rhombulus had been killed she completely lost it. She maintained patience just long enough to go outside. Then she destroyed everything around her. Motorbikes, chariots, everything parked outside was smashed.

A native bounty hunter made the huge mistake of trying to calm her down. The man in magical power armor with a groinsaw still attached walked up to her with his hands up asking, "hey, what the hell!?"

Star shouted back, "fuck off tin man!"

The rest she said in an incredibly grim tone, "I'm having a very, bad, day."

Their eyes locked. 

Queen Star and the Bounty Hunter knew that there was no peaceful way out of this. 

The sound of a rusty groinsaw revving up was cut short by the sound of the wand turning into a light sword and administering a high energy circumcision of the groinsaw. It's chain whipping out of control, around the bounty hunters body.

As he groaned in agony from the chain slicing through exposed soft parts of his anatomy, Star walked back into the shop, sat down and observed.

"Groinsaws, they sure look cool, but in real life they aren't a very practical weapon."

Star held up the remarkably clean wand, summoning a waiter. While eight other bounty hunters recovered their compatriot, downed their drinks and got the hell out of there.

Marco still couldn't believe that Star had become this crazy in such short order. She had always been a bit brutal, but Star was acting crazier than Ludo nowadays.

As a slime creature took their orders Marco finished explaining what had happened with Sir Roderick.

"So that's what we are looking. Roderick is in charge and we are screwed. Well, we have our freedom, I suppose that's more than what Toffee left us with."

Janna spoke.

"Yeah, but Toffee didn't have most of Mewni backing him up. Toffee just incapacitated the MHC and killed Lekhmet. He didn't do half of what Roderick just did."

Star tented her hands as she listened to all this as calmly and logically as she could. She was bubbling over with rage, confusion and sorrow, but mostly rage. She knew that she would have to mourn the dead later.

 _"Sure seem like there has been an awful lot of death lately_ ," she thought. She drew her compact mirror. Marco asked.

"Who are you calling?"

"Hekapoo, whatever we are doing next we are going to need her help, call Hekapoo."

As the device dialed the flame sorceress Marco added.

"You had better call Tom too, we will probably need his help as well."

Star replied.

"Wow Marco, you saying that we should call Tom? we must really be in deep shit!"

She looked around and asked, "what, not even a chuckle? Tough crowd, hmm, why is this thing taking so long to connect?"

Marco theorized, "Rhombulus told her to run all the way to the edge of the universe. It might take awhile for the signal to get there."

The call went to voicemail.

Star left a message and dialed the Demon Prince. As the line connected they saw an unexpected face.

"Bob?"

"Hey, I'm in hell. You know it's actually much nicer down here than I thought it would be. Well, actually I haven't seen much of hell, but the Lucitors have air conditioning, must be a huge electricity bill."

Star asked, "where's Tom?"

Marco and Bob simultaneously shook their heads, Bob explained. "Tom was badly wounded. Sir Roderick had some kind of magic bullets that tore him to pieces. I escorted him down here and, well, its really bad. The... Well let's call them doctors don't think they can save his body. They say that he is going to need a host until his body can be repaired."

"Well how long is that going to take?" Star implored.

"They can't give me a firm number, but they say it could take years."

"Years!?!"

Bob explained as well as he could.

"What can I say, Star. Demon-human hybrids are a rare breed and you can't just use magic to fix one. Magic bullets were what fucked him up in the first place."

Star groaned and was about to hang up when Bob shouted, "hey wait a minute, don't hang up. There's something else I have to tell you. What do any of you know about Roderick Spode? I don't mean his crimes, I mean the man himself."

Star looked around and asked, "what do you mean? He is just some Mewnian nobleman who went nuts."

Bob replied, "ah, now I'm not so sure about that. I finally remembered where I heard that name before. Roderick Spode is a character from the Jeeves and Wooster series of novels. Spode is a villain in those stories. But he was based on a real person. Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists."

Everyone looked around in confusion.

Bob face palmed and said, "this means he is a damn Nazi! Now, from what I was able to find out Sir Roderick had no history in Mewni before 2003 and for that matter neither the name Roderick or Spode was commonly seen in Mewnian records until after he showed up. Sometime around 2004 he started acquiring land, property and titles. The man was a major contributor to practically every modernization program in Mewni. If he used the name Spode as an alias that would suggest that he is actually from Earth. I want to know how he got to Mewni. I imagine Hekapoo would be the one to talk to about that."

Marco replied, "okay, but we can't get a hold of her right now."

Janna looked at Bob and asked, "so what are you going to do now?"

Bob sternly replied, "well, as soon as I get out of hell I'm going to find this guy and kill him."

Star leaned in and asked in an oddly coy tone. "You know Bob, most earthlings don't jump straight to cold blooded murder as a solution as quickly as that. You were just investigating him by reading books. Why do you want him dead all of a sudden?"

Bob gritted his teeth and said, "because if he is a Nazi then he is my enemy. Even if this all turns out to be some kind of ridiculous, impossible coincidence. he tried to kill my friends and seriously wounded one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Besides, Nazis are all about tightly controlled, top down command structures. Chop off the head and the body will die."

Bob drew his USW and showed it and it's suppressor to everyone.

"Just get me within a hundred yards and I'll plant a 124 grain hollow point in the fuckers brain stem. If I do it right no one will even know I was there."

Star gave a predatory grin, Marco just shook his head in resignation.

Janna exploded off of her chair and shouted, "Bob this is nuts! You can't just kill this guy!"

Bob replied, "well of course I can't, not right now. I'm still trapped in hell."

Janna spluttered. "No you know, I... I mean you people are all so worried about going to hell when you die. Doesn't killing kinda guarantee that you will wind up down there? I mean, 'thou shalt not kill?"

Bob replied, "Janna, you really shouldn't try to quote scripture to me. The more accurate translation is thou shalt not murder. After all this guy has done and all he is going to do if he stays in charge of Mewni, this isn't murder, it's justice. And furthermore, if I do die and wind up down here permanently...

Bob sighed and looked around, adding. "You know what, it's actually not half bad down here. At least not here, I mean there's probably a spot somewhere not far from here where people are being pitch forked up the..."

Another voice on Bob's end asked loudly, "Bob! Who are you talking to?"

"Star, Marco and Janna."

Dave Lucitor stormed into the room and stated grimly to those on the other end. "You need to get down here right away! My son is dying and we need a virgin right now."

Star asked in genuine confusion, "you need a what now?"

"A virgin, if Tom dies his soul is going to need a new vessel. Normally we would just go up to Mewni and put out a request for a suitable host. But since Spode has everything on lockdown it's going to have to be one of you!"

Star rubbed the back of her head and said, "well, it can't be me or Marco because we kinda... And I kinda..."

Marco groaned.

Star asked, "oh come on, why does it have to be one of us? Why can't it be Bob? He is already there."

Dave grabbed Bob's crucifix from around his neck and sternly explained, "you think we didn't think of that? This guy is protected. He has let God into himself for his entire life. God has infused his very being with enough power to burn my son to ash if he entered his body."

Bob just shrugged his shoulders.

Marco and Star turned to Janna.

She shook her head and said, "come on, how do you know I'm a..."

Deadpan expressions.

Janna shouted. "Fine! I guess I'll do it. I wanted magical power, what better place to get it than direct from the source. But, this won't be permanent, will it?"

Dave looked at her and said, "no, just as long as it takes to fix Tom's body."

Bob interrupted, "but you said that could take years!?"

Dave snapped, "listen, I don't like this anymore than you do. I don't want my son stuck in a body that is going to kill him. Yours or his or anyone! But if we don't act soon Tom's spirit is going to start to dissolve. It will simply blend into the fires of the inferno, he will continue to exist, sort of. But we will lose everything that makes him...him."

Dave Lucitor stood up and went into the hallway to cry.

Janna stood up, Star took out a pair of quite hideous looking dimensional scissors. She cut a portal to Tom's room and handed the scissors to Janna, Star explained.

"I took these off of Ludo. I have been keeping them as a backup for my mother's set of scissors. Janna, you...

Star swallowed and finished.

"You do what you need to do, okay? and when you see Tom, tell him..."

Star couldn't think up a suitable message. "Hey, thanks for being there? Thanks for saving my life? Thanks for being a better friend than you ever were a lover? Thanks for showing me my limits? Thanks for..."

All Star wanted to do was say "thanks for saving him."

Janna nodded and gulped. She stepped through the portal. Once they saw that she was through Star ended the call to Bob and called Hekapoo again.

Once again.

No response.

Star hung up in frustration. Marco added, "there's one other thing that I need to tell you. When Roderick killed Omnitraxus he told Hekapoo that the weapons he was using against the MHC were made with the help of Eclipsa. Eclipsa stole the weapons from his place when she escaped. This means that either Roderick stole the weapons from Eclipsa. Which seems unlikely since he probably didn't even know they existed, or..."

Star connected the remaining dots.

"Or he is working with Eclipsa. Why!?"

Marco shook his head and announced. "I have no idea! He wanted me to face trial, but I have no idea for what. I mean, what did I do? Other than the monster integration program? And you would think that Eclipsa would be a supporter of that, why wouldn't she be?"

Star slammed her wand into the table and stated, "we just don't know. We need information, we need..."

Marco finished the sentence. "Hekapoo. But where the fuck is she?"


	20. Okay, whoa, wait a minute, rewind. What's happening here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new function is discovered for the dimension of pillows. But what does this discovery portend?

"Hekapoo, but where the fuck is she?"

"Seriously Star? Seriously!? You cut off an innocent dudes dick?!"

Star waved at the memory and replied in an exasperated tone.

"Oh come on, you saw him, he was a Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhian bounty hunter. No chance in hell that guy was innocent. You saw the way he was looking at me, he revved first. And besides, I didn't cut off his dick. I cut off his groinsaw. It's the magical equivalent of shooting his gun out of his hands."

"Okay, three things, Star, one. Real gun fighters don't shoot guns out of people's hands, usually. It would take awhile to explain why. Secondly, okay, I saw he started his saw first. Three! there's no getting around the fact that even if you didn't senselessly maim that guy, you were still involved with war crimes and a bunch of other crazy shit."

Pauline blinked.

The screen like image of the memory had shrunk again. Back to a silvery ribbon. A ribbon which was quickly fading into the structure of the dimension, as it spooled out of Star Butterfly's head it appeared at first to be pure light. Forming into a metallic ribbon at about a foot above her, which eventually dissolved the further it got away from Star.

Star tried to change the subject. As she observed her memories melting into the mass above her she stated.

"You know it feels really weird letting these memories out of my head like this. I kinda feel like I'm... I don't know, crapping all over what might be one of the best parts of my ancestors legacy."

Pauline observed, "in a way you are. But it's more like going to the bathroom in a compost heap. The energy from the memory will be turned into mass which increases the general mass of this dimensi..."

Pauline looked around.

She did some quick math.

" _Judging by the size, relative trauma of the memory and the amount of mass it was being transformed into... Wow, your ancestors must have really seen some shit for all their trauma to make up this..."_

"Hey, remember, it's not just the baggage of all the queens of Mewni you are looking at. We also have the wand fudging those numbers you are running right now. And it isn't just our magic. There's also quite a bit of Lucitor magic and the magic of various... Guests of the royal family that make up this place."

They were in the mildest possible form of a nondual state. Just enough where Pauline and Star could see each other's memories and hear each other's surface thoughts. Yet still maintain enough ego on both sides to maintain their separate personalities. Subject, object. Judge, judged.

Still weird.

Pauline blinked and shook her head very quickly but firmly.

"Star, you committed war crimes."

Star looked around. The silver ribbon flashed into a near impossible shade of black as she shouted, "I know I know. I still can't believe how fast I went into mua ha ha ha ha ha! I'm a walking cliche of an evil queen! territory. It all got away from me. All these little choices. Not even my choices. I didn't have anyone to stop me or even slow me down. Everyone else went off the deep end right along with me or had already long since gone, but..."

"Pauline, let me show you something."

Star pushed the memory screen back to the fall of Trundelheim. Showing the piles of burning corpses.

"This is my memory, now, let me show you something from Queen Celena."

Accessing images from inside other ribbons Star found a memory that resounded with this one.

Another huge pile of corpses burning.

Star stated in a hopeless tone.

"What hides behind the golden fan the hand does sweetly hold. A trove of cosmic secrets that never will be told and this is one of them. This is a memory from my great great great grandma Celena the Shy. According to most records she spent most of her life as a shy, kind, slightly odd woman who was very skilled at making potions and pretty good at singing. She was half demon, on her fathers side. And her father..."

Star gulped at the fact.

"Her father was accidentally killed by her mother. Coming out of that kind of backstory you would think she would be an absolute beast. Well, for one brief moment in her life, she was. This pile of corpses was a monster village that she personally burned down to stave off any rebellions under her rule. She had only been on the throne for a week when this happened. But there were rumblings of rebellion, like there almost always are and... it sure did convince the monsters not to mess with her."

"Celena took this memory, and that entire part of herself and cast it out. Buried it here, in this dimension. But she wasn't the only one to do so."

Star reached up to another thread, an older thread. The oldest thread she could find, actually. Star continued narrating. "This dimension goes back all the way to Crecentia. It was one of her... Many little side projects. But it went the way of almost all of her side projects. She got it 90% right. But drove herself mad trying to get that last ten percent. She wanted a place which would turn her pain into pleasure in the most direct way possible. She was always looking for ways to turn her liabilities into assets. But she needed it to be liquid to accommodate her lover. She could never quite get it to become liquid enough. I can't explain it, it's something that I feel more than I can see. But every single sentient being who has been to this dimension has left bits of their memories here. Not every queen of Mewni committed atrocities. But a lot of them did and every one of them after Crecentia came here to scream. I mean, one of them destroyed an entire dimension. A dimension without anything more intelligent in it than a snail. But a dimension nonetheless."

Star was starting to become abstraction. Her memories were flooding out. The ribbons flowing from her head taking on a rainbow hue. She was also sinking into the pillow she was standing on. Star continued.

"I am so so sorry for everything I did and I swear I will never do anything like that ever again. Even what happened with my parents is no excuse. But please, I'm begging you to forgive me. If you don't then I'll just have to..."

Pauline grabbed Stars wrist.

"Okay, fine! It's not like I don't already 'know everything."

Star rose back from the pillows. The ribbons around her head faded to nothing, replacing her hair in visible light. "Yes, and I still want to provide context for all those memories you took from me. I mean we are only at a point which... I think we are at about four months after I left Echo Creek? And it's a nonstop ride of utter madness as long as Eclipsa is still on the board!"

Pauline asked, while swirling her index fingers through the air. "But that's still a year and eight months away."

"Yeah."

Pauline snapped. "Grrrrrr argh! Eclipsa, sheesh. That woman casts a huge shadow in your memories. I mean it's insane how many memories you have of her. I... I know why you didn't like her, but I get the feeling that I would have liked her. And I get the feeling that you would have liked her too. If some things had gone differently. I mean, I know so much about her and so little. What's this about you two not even being related?"

Star explained, "we're about to get to that part. So... When you took these memories from me and the Unicorn helped you process then you really don't know the times or dates of any of these events?"

Pauline explained as well as she could.

"I have a vague idea of when some of these things happened. Yes I have already seen it and... Processed it. I really need to know what happened, in chronological order. The way the Unicorn showed me all I got was the highest highs and lowest lows of your entire life. Not just the decade we were apart but events before then. Before we ever met. Which is why I need you to provide me with a chronology of what happened. Otherwise I'll never understand the full context of this information and I'm already confused enough."

"Sounds like a real headache." Star couldn't help but observe, with a slightly evil smile on her face.

Pauline groaned again. "Ugh, that fucking Unicorn. Being forced to see all those memories all at once... It was like being spit roasted. 

Star thought.

_"Yeah, well, I suppose this is your punishment for mind raping me then."_

But the words that came out of her mouth were.

"Now, what would you know about that?"

Pauline danced around a little. Coming up behind Star. Wrapping her arms around her lover and whispered.

"The barrier between us is so very thin. And this is a world which is made up of memories. Do you want me to try to drag you into a fantasy made out of some of my darkest memories? Something so fucked up that you will never look at me the same way again?"

Ribbons had descended on Pauline's head. Feathering themselves into her hair, standing on end, charged with energy. Allowing information to flow through a neuron like structure into the very fabric of the dimension of ribbons.

Star replied utterly deadpan.

"Pauline, I have already showed you how I pressured Marco into having sex after having murdered an innocent, somewhat sentient, creature. Do you really think your college shenanigans are going to impress me at this point?"

Pauline exhaled and looked up at her memory now playing before Star's eyes. Pauline observed.

"Forgot for a moment I forgot that this is a two way street. You know I really believed that achieving apotheosis would allow me to transcend this sort of thing. Limitations of the flesh. But... I don't know. Maybe it's just me remaining as human as I can be. Perhaps little girls aren't meant to become gods?"

Star chuckled and replied.

"Well, I'm glad you aren't running the multiverse right now. If everyone was as kinky as you are we probably wouldn't breed enough living creatures to keep our civilizations alive. Why is it that you are so attracted to the taboo anyway, StarFan?"

Star ran her hand through Pauline's hair. Severing the link between her ego and this dimension. Star had gotten in the habit of calling her StarFan when she really wanted to illustrate a point. Or to remind Pauline of the kid she used to be. Or in this case, both. Pauline nervously scratched her own head a moment later to confirm the connection severing. In the absence of a clear answer, Pauline started pontificating.

"Taboos, so many taboos. Forbidden fruit. Rape is taboo. But people do it all the time. We spend so much in pushing the limits, but the limits push back, don't they? I don't know, I mean, we both fucked up. And yeah, you probably fucked up more than I did. But at this point it looks like all I can do to figure this out is to be fucked by the combined guilt and shame of your bad decisions. So to atone for my fuck ups how about you fuck me with your fucked up memories until we are all forgiven our sins?"

Star stood there for a moment, her back still turned to Pauline. Star turned around to find...

Pauline was lying on a pillow, with ribbons around her wrists, ankles and mouth.

Star was confused.

Pauline worked the ribbon out of her mouth and explained.

"Well come on, finish explaining the memory then. Tell me what you did after Marco said that you two had to find... Hekapoo."

Star looked slightly less confused, but was still half baffled. Pauline explained further.

"Hey, just because I'm doomed to be fucked by your memories doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to enjoy it. And if I keep talking then we are never going to get done here. So, I'm lying back, relaxing and putting this back in my mouth so I will stop interrupting you. I'm just going to lie here and be a good girl until you finish showing me your memories."

Star looked in the opposite direction. Placed her hand on her chin and tried to change the subject, somewhat.

"Have you ever wondered what the Unicorn in my wand really is?"

Pauline replied.

"Oh I know exactly what the unicorn is. You created a direct link to the realm of magic. By seizing the last uncontaminated part of the realm and allowing it to expand out to its original size once the contaminant that had destroyed that realm in the first place, i.e. Toffee, was expunged. When you created the Unicorn you were trying to restore everything back to its original state as you perceived it including the recreation of part of the link between the realm of magic and the wand that you had just destroyed when you cast the whispering spell on poor dead Vincenzo. But in creating that unicorn which was simultaneously your link to the wand and the de facto controller of the realm of magic, you poured a great deal of yourself in a magical, spiritual and personality sense into The Unicorn. And thus when you went into a nondual state you were controlling the entire realm of magic. Giving you, at least in terms of raw power. If not skill like Celena, or finesse like your mother... Giving you the advantage against all of your opponents."

"At least."

"Until I came along."

"Because I was willing to dip down farther than you could allow yourself to. If you had allowed yourself to dip down far enough to actually enter the realm of magic like I did then who knows what you could have done? Perhaps all these problems we are going over would have been resolved much sooner. And then a new set problems come along and take their place."

Pauline replaced the ribbon around her mouth.

Star turned around.

Star let her wings out as she went deeper into the non-dual. Her eyes starting to look like they wanted to switch into full Ommatidium mode. The ribbons hovered around her wings, the wings allowed Star to lower herself, less than an inch away from Pauline's face. Pulling the ribbon out of Pauline's mouth with her teeth Star asked Pauline in an increasingly weird sounding voice.

"You seek the further screwing that is my memories? If I were a guy... Perhaps I would..."

Reaching into a pocket on her cargo pants Pauline pulled out a pair of glasses with red, square plastic frames. She took a deep breath and did her best possible imitation of her old voice.

"Didn't you say that you had a spell that turned Marco into a girl?"

"Um... Dressed him up like a girl. I didn't actually... Switch out any parts."

"Oh, well, I suppose you will have to just do it the girly way then. Start ravishing me, your majesty."

They realized what they were doing. They were throwing each other's egos at each other in a race for oneness.

Star knew that Pauline's knowledge of this dimension was limited.

Pauline knew how to look at the ribbons. But not how to control them. If she did she would have kept using her hand to move the ribbon around her mouth.

Star stood back up, holding the ribbon that had been in Pauline's mouth. She whispered an order.

"Tight, but not uncomfortably so."

The ribbons tightened around Pauline. Jerking her back onto her feet and then into the air. Star spoke the next order.

"Face to face inversion, hold."

Pauline now found herself inverted. Facing Star, eyes to eyes. Pauline flexed and strained against the ribbons. Futilely.

Star reached up and grabbed something. The Field Pistol from Pauline's hip. Being careful not to touch the safety or the trigger Star asked. "How do you trust me after I committed these horrible crimes?"

"Because we share something special. Something incredible and I don't want to throw that all away just because you have some baggage. Especially when I have baggage too."

Stars eyes started to look more human. She took a purposeful grip of the Pistol now and waved it, pointing off in the distance, as if she were scratching the back of her neck with it, asking.

"And how did you know about the unicorn thing? Even I didn't know that much about it!"

"Because, like I said. I went nondual with it. I saw what it was and it was mostly you. You put a copy of your mind and personality in a horse body. This version of you was mixed with arcane rituals and insane power and it got turned into something that you could barely comprehend and it clearly couldn't comprehend because it was overwhelmed by the effects of being in the realm of magic. Which washes away memories depending on how long you are there. Or..."

Pauline waited for a moment and asked.

"Are we really doing this?"

Star replied.

"If you like."

"What's the safe word?"

Star took a moment and replied.

"Uh, pumpkin?"

"Okay, what's the opposite of a safe word then?"

Star replied, "I don't know, um, hurt me?"

Pauline concluded, "ok, let's do this, under one condition. Please get rid of the gun. Playing with a loaded weapon is never a good idea even if we are in another dimension and things are different here. For all we know firing a bullet in here would be fine but I really don't want to find out."

Star looked around and tossed the ridiculous hand cannon a safe distance away.

Which was actually a very long way away.

Pauline replied, "okay, I think that will do..."

"Or. The real reason why I knew all that stuff about the unicorn was that I didn't know. The Unicorn doesn't even know. Its not like the realm of magic is a good place to keep knowledge. It all gets washed away in the raw currents of magic that slosh through it. It's the exact opposite of this place in that sense. Everything here is archived, accessible, remembered for all time. Or at least as long as this pocket dimension exists." 

Pauline breathed.

She imagined that cocktail of raging hormones that caused her voice to crack like a basket of eggs dropped down a mountainside. Those miserable braces that made her look so hideous. It allowed her to put on a fairly good imitation of her fourteen year old voice. 

"I'm StarFan13. I will always use whatever evidence I have at hand to come up with some kind of explanation as to how my beloved Star Butterfly does what she does. Even if she doesn't understand it, I want to understand it. If only so I can help you understand it."

Star snapped out the words.

"Hocus crocus."

Pauline couldn't help but snigger.

"Oh shit, you used a spell from Lisa Simpson!?"

The ribbons descended on Star. 

They swirled around her like a tornado. 

Using the unique power of this dimension the spell was refined, to provide exactly what the caster had intended.

The shabbily dressed former Queen of Mewni was now...

Still shabbily dressed in some of Pauline's castoffs, specifically a pair of cutoff denim jeans and a Boise State hoodie.

But now.

She felt.

Well, Star still felt strong. She couldn't not be strong, even in her minds eye.

Star reached down and stated.

"Ah, but that parts new."

The hand reflexively shot up. Resting against a... facial shape was not all that different.

Star summoned another ribbon and asked it to become a mirror.

"Hmm, I'm surprised how, not different I look." Star observed.

He looked back at tied up Pauline, offering.

"We could try it the other way around."

Pauline replied. "No, don't turn me into a boy. I want to be the girl for this. I want to know what it feels like to have a conquerer, conquer me."

Star grinned and said, "um, pumpkin, right?"

Pauline replied, "okay, pumpkin, are we confirming that is the safe word. Or are you safe wording out?"

"I'm safe-wording out. I literally just got turned into a guy and I really hope it can be reversed. I'm not ready to have sex just yet. Matter of fact I need to..."

Star fell down.

As she fell the ribbons came back and turned her back into a female.

She woke back up.

Star hit the top of a luxuriantly soft, big green pillow. As far from a non-dual state as the circumstances would permit. As she realized that they were dicking around instead of explaining what happened when. Star went back to what they had come here to do. "Okay, wow, where was I. Okay, um. What we did after Marco said we had to find Hekapoo. I said, "we have to go to the MHC headquarters. If there's any way of finding Hekapoo it will be through them. So, Marco got out his dimensional scissors and..."


End file.
